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THE 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER: 

A 

TALE. 

v ,v' 

l o v - * 

BY AMELIA OPIE. 


u Thy sweet reviving smiles might cheer despair, 

On the pale lips detain the parting breath, 

And bid hope blossom in the shades of death.” 

MRS. BARB.iULD. 


WASHINGTON : 

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM COOPER ; AND BY JOSEPH 
MILLIGAN, GEORGETOWN. 


1812. 




?// ?/A<£ % ^ & 


THE 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER, 



THE night was dark,. ..the wind blew keenly 
over the frozen and rugged heath, when Agnes, 
pressing her moaning child to her bosom, was tra- 
velling on foot to her father’s habitation, 

“ Would to God I had never left it!” she ex- 
claimed, as home and all its enjoyments rose in fan- 
cy to her view. And I think my readers will be 
ready to join in the exclamation, when they hear 
the poor wanderer’s history. 

Agnes Fitzb»nry was the only child of a respec- 
table merchant in a country town, who, having lost 
his wife when his daughter was very young, resolv- 
ed, for her sake, to form no second connexion. To 
the steady, manly affection of a father, Fitzhenry 
joined the fond anxieties and endearing attentions 
.of a mother; and his parental care was amply re- 
paid by the love and amiable qualities of Agnes. 


4 


y 

/ 


He was not rich, yet the profits of his trade were 
such as to enable him to bestow every possible ex- 
pense on his daughter’s education, and to lay up a 
considerable sum yearly for her future support: 
whatever else he could spare from his own absolute 
wants, he expended in procuring comforts and plea- 
sures for her. “ What an excellent father that man 
is!” was the frequent exclamation among his ac- 
quaintance .... 41 and what an excellent child ht has ! 
well may he be proud of her,” was as commonly 
the answer to it. Nor was this to be wondered at; 
Agnes united to extreme beauty of face and person 
every accomplishment that belongs to her owm sex, 
and a great degree of that strength of mind and ca- 
pacity for acquiring knowledge supposed to belong 
exclusively to the other. 

For this combination of rare qualities Agnes was 
admired ; for her sweetness of temper, her willing- 
ness to oblige, her seeming unconsciousness of her 
own merits, and her readiness to commend the 
merits of vothers....for these still rarer qualities 
Agnes was beloved : and she seldom formed an 
acquaintance without at the same time securing a 
friend. 

But short was thy triumph, sweet Agnes ! and 
long was thy affliction ! 

Her father thought lie loved her (and perhaps 
he was right) as never father loved a child before, 


5 


and Agnes thought she loved him as a child never 
before loved a father. u I will not marry, but live 
single for my father’s sake,” she oft^n said ; but she 
altered her determination when her heart, hitherto 
unmoved by the addresses of the other sex, was as- 
sailed by an officer in the guards who came to re- 
cruit in the town in which she resided. 

Clifford, as I shall , call him, had not only a fine 
figure and a graceful address, but talents rare and 
various, and powers of conversation so fascinating, 
that the woman he had betrayed forgot her wrongs 
in his presence ; and the creditor who came to dun 
him for the payment of debts already incurred, 
W’ent away eager to oblige him by letting him incur 
still more. Fatal perversion of uncommon abilities! 
This man, who might have taught a nation to look 
up to him as its best pride in prosperity, and its 
best hope in adversity, made no other use of his ta- 
lents than to betray the unwary of both sexes, the 
one to shame, the other to pecuniary difficulties ; 
and he, whose mind was capacious enough to have 
imagined schemes to aggrandize his native country, 
the slave of sordid selfishness, never looked beyond 
his own temporary and petty benefit, and sat down 
contented with the achievements of the day, if he 
had overreached a credulous tradesman, or beguiled 
an unsuspecting woman. 

A 2 


6 


But to accomplish even these paltry triumphs, 
great knowledge of the human heart was necessary* 
a power of discovering the prevailing foible in those 
on whom' he had designs, and of converting their 
imagined security into their real danger. He soon 
discovered that Agnes, who was rather inclined to 
doubt her possessing in an uncommon degree the 
good qualities which she really had, valued herself, 
with not unusual blindness, on those which she had 
not. She thought herself endowed with great pow- 
er to read the characters of those with whom she 
associated, when she had even not discrimination 
enough to understand her own: and, while she 
imagined it was not in the power of others to de- 
ceive her, she was constantly in the habit of deceiv- 
ing herself. 

Clifford was not slow to avail himself of this 
weakness in his intended victim ; and, while he 
taught her to believe none of his faults had escaped 
her observation, with hers he had made himself 
thoroughly acquainted. But not content with mak- 
ing her faults subservient to his views, he pressed 
her virtues also into his service ; and her affection 
for her father, that strong hold, secure in which, 
Agnes would have defied the most violent assaults 
of temptation, he contrived should be the means of 
her defeat. 


7 


I have been thus minute in detailing the various 
and seducing powers which Clifford possessed, not 
because he will be a principal figure in my narrative, 
for, on the contrary, the chief characters in it are 
the Father and Daughter; but in order to excuse, as 
much as possible, the strong attachment he excited in 
Agnes. 

It has been remarked by a female writer of cele- 
brity, that “ love, however rated bv many as the 
chief passion of the heart, is but a poor dependant, 
a retainer on the other passions.. ..admiration, grati- 
tude, respect, esteem, pride in the object: divest 
the boasted sensation of these, and it is no more 
than the impression of a twelvemonth, by courtesy, 
or vulgar error, called love.” And of all these in- 
gredients was the passion of Agnes composed. 
For the graceful person and manner of Clifford she 
felted miration ; and her gratitude was excited by 
her observing that, while he was an object of atten- 
tion to every one wherever he appeared, his atten- 
tions were exclusively directed to herself; and that 
he who, from his rank and accomplishments, might 
have laid claim to the hearts even of the brightest 
daughters of fashion, in the gayest scenes of the 
metropolis, seemed to have no higher ambition than 
to appear amiable in the eyes of Agnes, the humble 
toast of an obscure country town ; while his supe- 
riority of understanding, and brilliancy of talents 


I 


8 


called forth her respect, and his apparent virtues 
her esteem; and, when to this high idea of the 
qualities of the man, was added a knowledge of his 
high birth and great expectations, it is no wonder 
that she also felt the last mentioned, and often, 
perhaps, the greatest, excitement to love, u pride in 
the object.” 

When Clifford began to pay those marked atten- 
tions to Agnes, which ought always, on due en- 
couragement from the woman to whom they are 
addressed, to be followed by an offer of marriage, 
he contrived to make himself as much disliked by 
the father, as admired by the daughter; yet his 
management was so artful, that Fitzhenry could not 
give a sufficient reason for his dislike. ...he could 
only declare its existence ; and, for the first time in 
her life, Agnes learned to think her father unjust 
and capricious. Thus, while Clifford ensured an 
acceptance of his addresses from Agnes, he, at the 
same time, secured a rejection of them from Fitz- 
henry; and this was the object of his wishes, as he 
had a decided aversion to marriage, and knew, be- 
sides, that marrying Agnes would disappoint ail his 
ambitious prospects in life, and bring on him the 
eternal displeasure of his father. 

At length, after playing for some time with her 
hopes and fears, Clifford requested Fitzhenry to 
sanction with his approbation, his addresses to his 


9 


daughter; and Fitzhenry, as he expected, coldly 
and firmly declined the honor of his alliance. But 
when Clifford mentioned, as if unguardedly, that he 
hoped to prevail on his father to approve the mar- 
riage after it had taken place, if not before, Fitz- 
henry proudly told him he thought his daughter 
much too good to be smuggled into the family of 
any one ; while Clifford, piqued in his turn at the 
warmth of Fitzhenry ’s expressions, and the dignity 
of his manner, left him, exulting secretly in the con- 
sciousness that he had his revenge: for he knew 
the heart of Agnes was irrecoverably his. 

Agnes heard from her lover that his suit was re- 
jected, with agonies as violent as he appeared to 
feel. “ What!” exclaimed she, u can that affec- 
tionate father, who has till now anticipated my 
wishes, disappoint me in the wish dearest to my 
heart!” In the midst of her first agitation her 
father entered the room, and, with w a countenance 
more in sorrow than in anger,” began to expostulate 
w ith her on the impropriety of the connexion which 
she was desirous of forming. He represented to 
her the very slender income Clifford possessed, the 
inconvenience to which an officer’s wife is exposed, 
and the little chance there is for a man’s making a 
constant and domestic husband who has been brought 
up in an idle profession, and accustomed to habit > 
of intemperance, expense, and irregularity. 


0 - 


10 


“ But, above all,” said he, “ how is it possible 
that you could ever condescend to accept the ad- 
dresses of a man whose father, he himself owns, will 
never sanction them with his approbation:” Alas! 
Agnes could plead no excuse but that she was in 
love, and she had too much sense to urge such a 
plea to her father. “ Believe me,” he continued, 
u I speak thus from the most disinterested consi- 
deration of your interest ; for, painful as the idea of 
parting with you must be to me, I am certain I 
should not shrink from the bitter trial, whenever 
my misery would be your happiness ; (here his voice 
faltered) but in this case, I am certain that by re- 
fusing my consent to your wishes I ensure your fu- 
ture comfort; and, in a cooler moment, you will be 
of the same opinion.” Agnes shook her head, and 
turned away in tears. u Nay, hear me, my child,” 
resumed Fitzhenry, “ you know I am no tyrant ; 
and if, after time and absence have been tried in 
order to conquer your unhappy passion, it remain 
unchanged, then, in defiance of my judgment, Fwill 
consent to your marriage with Mr. Clifford, pro- 
vided his father consent likewise; for, unless he 
does, I never will : and if you have not pride and 
resolution enough to be the guardian of your own 
dignity, I must guard it for you ; but I am sure 
there will be no need of my interference, and Agnes 


11 


Fitzhenry would scorn to be clandestinely the wife 
of any man.” 

Agnes thought so too ; and Fitzhenry spoke this 
in so mild and affectionate a manner, and in a tone 
so expressive of suppressed wretchedness, which 
the bare idea of parting with her had occasioned 
him, that, for the moment, she forgot every thing 
but her father, and the vast debt of love and grati- 
tude she owed him ; and throwing herself into his 
arms, she protested her entire, nay cheerful, acqui- 
escence in his determination. “ Promise me, then,” 
replied Fitzhenry, “ that you will never see Mr. 
Clifford more, if you can avoid it; he has the 
tongue of Belial, and if.....,..” here Agnes indig- 
nantly interrupted him with reproaches, for suppos- 
ing her so weak as to be in danger of being seduced 
into a violation of her duty ; and so strong were the 
terms in which she expressed herself, that her father 
entreated her pardon for having thought such a 
premise necessary. 

The next day Clifford did not venture to call at 
the house, but he watched the door till he saw Ag- 
nes come out alone, and then, having joined her, he 
obtained from her a full account of the conversation 
she had had with Fitzhenry ; when, to her great 
surprise, he drew conclusions from it which she had 
never imagined possible. He saw, or pretended to 
: :e ( > in Fitzhenry ’s rejection of his offers, not merely 


12 


a dislike of her marrying him, but a design to 
prevent her marrying at all ; and, as a design like 
this was selfish in the last degree, and ought not 
to be complied with, he thought it would be kinder 
in her to disobey her father, and marry the man of 
her heart, than, by indulging him once, flatter him 
with the hope she would do it again, till by this 
means, the day of her marrying, when it came at 
last, would burst on him with tenfold horrors. The 
result of this specious reasoning, enforced by tears, 
caresses and protestations, was, that she had better 
go off to Scotland immediately with him, and trust 
to time, necessity, and their parents’ affection, to 
secure their forgiveness. 

Agnes, the first time, heard these arguments and 
this proposal with the disdain they merited; but, 
alas! she did not resolve to avoid all opportunity of 
hearing them a second time : but, vain of the reso- 
lution she had shown on this first trial, she was not 
averse to stand another, delighted to find that she 
had not over-rated her strength, when she reproach- 
ed Fitzhenry for his want of confidence in it. The 
consequence is obvious : again and again she heard 
Clifford argue in favor of an elopement ; and though 
she still retained virtue sufficient to withhold her 
consent, she every day saw fresh reason to believe 
he argued on good grounds, and to think that pa- 
rent whose whole study had been, till now, her 


13 

gratification, was, in this instance at least, the slave 
of unwarrantable selfishness. 

At last, finding neither time, reflection, nor even 
a temporary absence, had the slightest effect on her 
attachment, but that it gained new force every day, 
she owned that nothing but the dread of making her 
father unhappy, withheld her from listening to Clif- 
ford’s proposal: ’twas true, she said, pride forbade 
it, but the woman who could listen to the dictates 
of pride, knew nothing of love but the name. This 
was the moment for Clifford to urge, more strongly 
than ever, that the elopement was the most effectual 
means of securing her fathers happiness, as well as 
her own; till at last, her judgment became the dupe 
of her wishes ; and, fancying she was following the 
dictates of filial affection, when she was in reality 
the helpless victim of passion, she yielded to the 
persuasions of a villain, and set off with him to 
Scotland. 

When Fitzhenry first heard of her flight, he sat 
for hours absorbed in a sort of dumb anguish, far 
more eloquent than words. At length he burst into 
exclamations against her ingratitude for all the love 
and care he had bestowed on her; and the next mo- 
ment he exclaimed, with tears of tenderness, “ Poor' 
girl ! she is not used to commit faults ; how misera- 
ble she will be when she comes to reflect! and how 
she will long for my forgiveness ! and, O yes ! I am 


B 


14 


sure I shall long as ardently to forgive her!” Then 
his arms were folded in fancy round his child, whom 
he pictured to himself confessing her marriage to 
him, and upon her knees imploring his pardon; 
But day after day came, and no letter from the 
fugitives, acknowledging their error, and begging 
his blessing on their union. ...for no union had taken 
place. When Clifford and Agnes had been convey- 
ed, as fast as four horses could carry them, one hun- 
dred miles towards Gretna-green, and had ordered 
fresh horses, Clifford started, as he looked at his 
pocket-book, and, with well dissembled consterna- 
tion, exclaimed, u What can we do? I have brought 
the wrong pocket-book, and have not money enough 
to carry us above a hundred and odd miles further 
on the north road!” Agnes was overwhelmed 
with grief and apprehension at that information, but 
did not for an instant suspect the fact was otherwise 
than Clifford stated it to be. 

As I before observed, Agnes piqued herself on 
her knowledge of characters, and she judged of 
them frequently by the rules of physiognomy : she 
had studied voices too, as well as countenances 5 
was it possible, then, that Agnes, who had from 
Clifford’s voice and countenance pronounced him 
all that was ingenuous, honorable, and manly, could 
suspect him capable of artifice? Could she, retract- 
ing her pretensions to penetration, believe she had 


15 


put herself in the power of a designing libertine ? 
No! Vanity and self-love forbade this salutary 
suspicion to enter her imagination; and, without 
one scruple, or one reproach, she acceded to the 
plan Clifford proposed, as the only one likely to 
obviate their difficulties, and procure them most 
speedily an opportunity of solemnizing their mar- 
riage. 

Deluded Agnes ! you might have known that the 
honorable lover is as fearful to commit the honor of 
his mistress, even in appearance, as she herself can 
be; that his care and anxiety to screen her even 
from the breath of suspicion are ever on the watch ; 
and that, therefore, had Clifford’s designs been such 
as virtue would approve, he would have put it out 
of the power of accident to prevent your immediate 
marriage, and expose your fair fame to the whisper 
of calumny. 

To London they set forward, and were driven to 
a hotel in the Adelphi, whence Clifford went out in 
search of lodgings ; and, having met with conveni- 
ent apartments at the west end of the town, he con- 
ducted to them the pensive, and already repentant 
Agnes. u Under what name and title,” said Ag- 
nes, w am I to be introduced to the woman of the 
house?” “ As my intended wife,” cried her lover, 
pressing her to his bosom, “ and in a few days, 
though to me they will appear ages, you will give 


16 


me a right to call you by that tender name.” “ In 
a few days !” exclaimed Agnes, withdrawing from 
his embrace, “ cannot the marriage take place to- 
morrow?” “Impossible!” replied Clifford, “you 
are not of age.... I can’t procure a license.. ..but I 
have taken these lodgings for a month.. ..we will 
have the banns published, and be married at the 
parish church.” 

To this arrangement, against which her delicacy 
and every feeling revolted, Agnes would , fain have 
objected in the strongest manner; but, unable to 
urge any reasons for her objection, except such as 
seemed to imply distrust of her own virtue, she sub- 
mitted, in mournful silence, to the plan; and, with 
a heart then, for the first time, tortured with a sense 
of degradation, she took possession of her apart- 
ment, and Clifford returned to his hotel, meditating 
with savage delight on the success of his plans, and 
on the triumph which he fancied awaited him. 

Agnes passed the night in sleepless agitation, now 
forming and now rejecting schemes to obviate the 
danger which must accrue to her character, if not to 
her honor, by remaining for a whole month exposed 
to the seductions of a man, whom she had but too 
fatally convinced of his power over her heart ; and 
the result of her reflections was, that she should in- 
sist on his leaving town, and not returning till he 
came to lead her to the altar. Happy would it have 


17 


been for Agnes, had she adhered to this resolution, 
but vanity and self-confidence again interfered : 
“ What have I to fear?” said Agnes to herself: “ am 
I so fallen in my own esteem that I dare not expose 
myself even to a shadow of temptation ? No ! I will 
not think so meanly of my virtue ; the woman that 
is afraid of being dishonored is half overcome al- 
ready; and I will meet with boldness the trials I 
cannot avoid.” 

O vanity! thou hast much to answer for! I am 
convinced that, were we to trace up to their source 
all the most painful and degrading events of our 
lives, we should find most of them to have their 
origin in the gratified suggestions of vanity. 

It is not my intention to follow Agnes through 
the succession of mortifications, embarrassments, 
temptations, and struggles, which preceded her un- 
doing; (for secure as she thought herself in her 
own strength, and the honor of her lover, she be- 
came at last a prey to her seducer,) it is sufficient 
that I explain the circumstances which led to her 
being in a cold winters night houseless and unpro- 
tected, a melancholy wanderer towards the house of 
her father. 

Before the expiration of the month, Clifford had 
triumphed over the virtue of Agnes, and soon after 
he received orders to join his regiment, as it was 
going to be sent on immediate services 4( But you 

B 2 


IB 


will return to me before you embark, in order to 
make me your wife ?” said the half distracted Ag- 
nes ; a you will not leave me to shame as well as 
misery ?” Clifford promised every thing she wished ; 
and Agnes tried to lose the pangs of parting, in an- 
ticipation of the joy of his return. But on the very 
clay that Agnes expected him, she received a letter 
from him, saying that he was under sailing orders, 
and to see her again before the embarkation was 
impossible. 

To do Clifford justice, he, in this instance, told 
truth ; and, as he really loved Agnes as well as a 
libertine can love, he felt the agitation and distress 
which his letter expressed; though, had he returned 
to her, he had an excuse ready prepared for delay- 
ing the marriage. 

Words can but ill describe the situation of Agnes 
on the receipt of this letter. The return of Clifford 
might not be expected for months at least ; and per- 
haps he might never return ! The thought of his 
danger was madness: but when she reflected that 
she should, in all probability, become a mother be- 
fore she became a wife, she rolled herself on the 
floor, in a transport of frantic anguish, and implored 
heaven in mercy to put an end to her existence. 
a O! my dear injured father!” she exclaimed, u I 
who was once your pride, am now your disgrace ! 
and that child, wjiose first delight it was to look up 


19 


in your face, and see your eyes beaming with fond- 
ness on her, can now never dare to meet their glance 
again.” 

But, though Agnes dared not presume to write 
to her father till she could sign herself the wife of 
Clifford, she could not exist without making some 
secret inquiries concerning his health and spirits; 
and, before he left her, Clifford recommended a 
trusty messenger to her for the purpose. The first 
account she received was, that Fitzhemy was well ; 
the next, that he was dejected ; the three following, 
that his spirits were growing better, and the last ac- 
count was, that he was married. 

“ Married!” cried Agnes, rushing into her cham- 
ber, and shutting the door after her, in a manner 
sufficiently indicative to the messenger of the an- 
guish she hastened to conceal... .“ Married! Clifford 
abroad ; perhaps at this moment a corpse.. ..and my 
father married! What, then, am I? A wretch 
forlorn. ...an outcast from society! no one to love, no 
one to protect and cherish me ! Great God ! w T ilt 
thou not pardon mfc if I seek a refuge in the 
grave?” 

Here nature suddenly and powerfully impressed 
on her recollection, that she was about to become a 
parent ; and, falling on her knees, she sobbed out, 
“ What am I ? did I ask ? I am a mother, and earth 
still holds me by a tie too sacred to be broken!” 


20 


Then, by degrees, she became calmer; and re- 
joiced, fervently rejoiced, in her father’s second 
marriage, though she felt it as too convincing a 
proof how completely he had thrown her from his 
affections. She knew that his reason for not mar- 
rying again was, the fear of a second family’s di- 
minishing the strong affection he bore to her ; and 
now it was plain that he married in hopes of losing 
his affection for her. Still, this information removed 
a load from her mind, by showing her Fitzhenry 
felt himself capable of receiving happiness from 
other hands than hers ; and she resolved, if she 
heard he was happy in his change of situation, never 
to recall to his memory the daughter, whom it was 
so much his interest to forget. 

The time of Agnes’s confinement now drew 
near.. ..a time which fills with apprehension even 
the wife who is soothed and supported by the tender 
attentions of an anxious husband, and the assiduities 
of affectionate relations and friends, and who knows 
the child she is about to present them with, will at 
once gratify their affections and their pride; what 
then must have been the sensations of Agnes at a 
moment so awful and dangerous as this! Agnes, 
who had no husband to soothe her by his anxious 
inquiries, no relations or friends to cheer her droop- 
ing soul by the expressions of sympathy, and whose 
child, instead of being welcomed by an exulting 


21 


family, must be, as well as its mother, a strange 
even to its nearest relation ! 

But, in proportion to her trials, seemed to be 
Agnes’s power of rising superior to them ; and, after 
enduring her sufferings with a degree of fortitude 
and calmness that astonished the mistress of the 
house, whom compassion had induced to attend on 
her, she gave birth to a lovely boy: and from that 
moment, though she rarely smiled, and never saw 
any one but her kind landlady, her mind was no 
longer oppressed by the deep gloom she had before 
labored under ; and when she had heard from Clif- 
ford, of her father’s being happy, and clasped her 
babe to her bosom, Agnes might almost be pro- 
nounced cheerful. 

After she had been six months a mother, Clifford 
returned ; and in the transport of seeing him safe, 
Agnes almost forgot she had been anxious and un- 
happy. Now again was the subject of the marriage 
resumed; but just as the wedding-day was fixed, 
Clifford was summoned away to attend his expiring 
father, and again was Agnes doomed to the tortures 
of suspense. 

After a month’s absence, Clifford returned, but ap- 
peared to labor under a dejection of spirits, which 
he seemed studious to conceal from her. Alarmed 
and terrified at an appearance so unusual, she de- 
manded an explanation; which the consummate 


deceiver gave at length, after many entreaties on her 
part, and feigned reluctance on his. He told her 
his father’s illness was occasioned by his having 
been informed that he was privately married to her, 
and that he had sent for him to enquire into the 
truth of the report; and being convinced, by his 
solemn assurance, that no marriage had taken place, 
he had commanded him, unless he wished to kill 
him, to take a solemn oath never to marry Agnes 
Fitzhenry without his consent. 

“ And clid you take the oath ?” cried Agnes, her 
whole frame trembling with agitation. “ What 
could I do?” replied he; “ my father’s life in evi- 
dent danger if I refused ; besides the dreadful cer- 
tainty that he would put his threats in execution of 
cursing me with his dying breath ; and, cruel as he 
is, Agnes, I could not help feeling he was my fa- 
ther.” “ Barbarian !” exclaimed she, “ I sacrificed 
my father to you ! An oath ! O God ! have you 
then taken an oath never to be mine?” and, saying 
this, she fell into a long and deep swoon. 

When she recovered, but before she was able to 
speak, she found Clifford kneeling by her; and, 
while she was too w T eak to interrupt him, he con- 
vinced her that he did not at all despair of his fa- 
ther’s consent to his making her his wife, else, he 
should have been less willing zo give so ready a con- 
sent to take the oath imposed on him, even although 


25 


his father’s life depended on it. u O! no,” replied 
Agnes, with a bitter smile, “ you wrong yourself ; 
you are too good a son to have been capable of 
hesitating a moment; there are few children so bad, 
so very bad as I am and bursting into an agony 
of grief, it was long before the affectionate language 
and tender caresses of Clifford could restore her to 
tranquillity. 

Another six months elapsed, during which time 
Clifford kept her hopes alive, by telling her he every 
day saw fresh signs of his father’s relenting in her 
favor : “ At these times, lead me to him,” she would 
say, “ let him hear the tale of my wretchedness ; let 
me say to him, f for your son’s sake I have lost the 
best of fathers, the happiest of homes, and have be- 
come an outcast from society;’ then would I bid 
him look at this pale cheek, this emaciated form, 
proofs of the anguish that is ’undermining my con- 
stitution ; and tell him to beware how, by forcing 
you to withhold from me my right, he made you 
guilty of murdering the poor deluded wretch, who, 
till she knew you, never lay down without a father’s 
blessing, or rose but to be welcomed by his smile !” 

Clifford had feeling, but it was of that transient 
sort which never outlived the disappearance of the 
object that occasioned it. To these pathetic entrea- 
ties he always returned affectionate answers, and 
was often forced to leave the room in order to avoid 


24 


being too much softened by them ; but, by the time 
he had reached the end of the street, always alive to 
the impressions of the present moment, the sight of 
some new beauty, or some old companion, dried up 
the starting tear, and restored to him the power of 
coolly considering how he should continue to deceive 
his miserable victim. 

But the time at length arrived, when the mask 
that hid his villany from her eyes fell off, never to 
be replaced. As Agnes fully expected to be the 
wife of Clifford, she was particularly careful to lead 
a retired life, and not to seem unmindful of her 
shame, by exhibiting herself at places of public 
amusement. In vain did Clifford paint to her the 
charms of the play, the opera, and other places of 
fashionable resort. u Retirement, with books, mu- 
sic, work, and your society,” she used to reply u are 
better suited to my taste and situation ; and never, 
but as your wife, will I presume to meet the public 
eye.” 

Clifford, though he wished to exhibit his lovely 
conquest to the world, was obliged to submit to her 
will in this instance. Sometimes, indeed, Agnes 
was prevailed on to admit to her table those young 
men of Clifford’s acquaintance who were the most 
distinguished for their talents and decorum of man- 
ners; but this was the only departure he had ever 


25 


yet prevailed on her to make, from the plan of re- 
tirement she had adopted. 

One evening, however, Clifford was so unusually 
tirgent with her to accompany him to Brury-lane, to 
■see a favorite tragedy, (urging as an additional mo- 
tive for her obliging him, that he w as going to leave 
her on the following Monday, in order to attend 
his father into the country, where he should be 
forced to remain some time,) that Agnes, unwilling 
to refuse what he called his parting request, at length 
complied ; Clifford having prevailed on Mrs. Askew, 
the kind landlady, to accompany them, and having 
assured Agnes, that, as they should sit in the upper 
boxes, "she might, if she chase it, wear her veh 
down. Agnes, in spite of herself, was delighted 
with the representation ; but, as 

hearts refin’d the sadden’d tint retain, 

The sigh is pleasure, and the jeet is pain,” 

she was desirous of leaving the house before the 
farce began ; yet, as Clifford saw a gentleman in the 
lower boxes with whom he had business, she con- 
sented to stay till he had spoken to him. Soon after, 
she saw Clifford enter the lower box opposite to 
her; and those who know what it is to love, will 
not be surprised to hear that Agnes had more 
pleasure in looking at her lover, and drawing favor- 
able comparisons between him and the gentlemen 
who surrounded him, than in attending to the farce; 
c 


26 


and she had been some minutes absorbed in this 
pleasing employment, when two gentlemen entered 
the box where she was, and seated themselves be- 
hind her, 

u Who is that elegant, fashionable looking man, 
my lord, in the lower box just opposite to us ?..., 
X mean he who is speaking to captain Mowbray.” 
a It is George Clifford, of the guards,” replied his 
lordship, “ and one of the cleverest fellows in Eng- 
land, colonel.” 

Agnes, who had not missed one word of this 
conversation, now became still more attentive. 

u O! I have heard a great deal of him,” returned 
the colonel, “ and as much against him as for him.” 

Most likely,” said his lordship, u for it is a com- 
mon remark, that if his heart were not as bad as his 
head is good, he would be an honor to human na- 
ture ; but, I dare say, that fellow has ruined more 
young men, and seduced more young women, than 
any man of his age (which is just four and thirty) 
in the three kingdoms.” 

Agnes sighed deeply, and felt herself attacked by 
a sort of faint sickness. 

“ But it is to be hoped he will reform now,” ob- 
served the colonel, u I hear he is going to be marri- 
ed to Miss Sandford, the great city heiress.” u So 
he is ; and Monday is the day fixed for the wed~ 
ding.” 


27 


Agnes started: Clifford himself had told her he 
must leave her on Monday for some weeks ; and, 
in breathless expectation, she listened to what fol- 
lowed. 

“ But what then?” continued his lordship, u he 
marries for money merely. The truth is, his father 
is lately come to a long disputed barony, and with 
scarcely an acre of land to support the dignity of it ; 
so his son has consented to marry an heiress, in or- 
der to make the family rich, as well as noble. You 
must know, I have my information from the foun- 
tain head : Clifford’s mother is my relation, and the 
good woman thought proper to acquaint me in form 
with the advantageous alliance her hopeful son was 
about to make.” 

This confirmation of the truth of a story, which 
she till now hoped might be mere report, was more 
than Agnes could well bear; but, made courageous 
by desperation, she resolved to listen while they 
continued to talk on this subject. Mrs. Askew, in 
the mean while, was leaning over the box, too much 
engrossed by the farce to attend to what was passing 
behind her. Just as his lordship concluded the last 
sentence, Agnes saw Clifford go out with his friend ; 
and she, who had but the minute before gazed on 
him with looks of admiring fondness, now wished, 
in the bitterness of her soul, that she might never 
behold him again ! 


28 


u I never wish,” said the colonel, 44 a match of 
interest to be a happy one. 5 * 44 Nor will this be so, 
depend on it,” answered his lordship ; 44 for, besides 
that Miss Sandford is ugly and disagreeable, she 
has a formidable rival.” 44 Indeed!” cried the 
other, u a favorite mistress I suppose.” 

Here the breath of Agnes grew shorter and 
shorter; she suspected they were going to talk of 
her; and, under other circumstances, her nice sense 
of honor would have prevented her attending to a 
conversation which she was certain was not meant 
for her ear : but so great was the importance of the 
present discourse to her future peace and well-being, 
that it annihilated all sense of impropriety in listen- 
ing to it. 

64 Yes, he has a favorite mistress,” answered his 
lordship .... 44 a girl who was worthy a better fate.” 
44 You know her, then?” asked the colonel. 44 No,” 
replied he , 44 by name only ; and when I was in the 
neighborhood of the town where she lived, I heard 
continually of her beauty and accomplishments : her 
name is Agnes Fitz....Fitz....” 44 Fitzhenry, I sup- 
pose,” said the other. 44 Yes, that is the name,” said 
his lordship ; 44 how came you to guess it ?” 44 Be- 
cause Agnes Fitzhenry is a name I have often 
heard toasted: she sings well, does she not?” 44 She 
does every thing well,” rejoined the other ; and was 


29 


once the pride of her father, and the town she lived 
in.” 

Agnes could scarcely forbear groaning aloud at 
this faithful picture of what she once was. 

“ Poor thing!” resumed his lordship, “ that ever 
she should be the victim of a villain! It seems he 
seduced her from her father’s house, under pretence 
of carrying her to Gretna-green ; but, on some in- 
fernal plea or another, he took her to London.” 

Here the agitation of Agnes became so visible as 
to attract Mrs, Askew’s notice ; but as she assured 
her she should be well presently, Mrs. Askew again 
gave herself up to the illusion of the scene. Little 
did his lordship think how severely he was wound- 
ing the peace of one for whom he felt such com* 
passion. 

44 You seem much interested about this unhappy 
girl,” said the colonel. 44 I am so,” replied the 
other, 44 and full of the subject too ; for Clifford’s 
factotum, Wilson, has been with me this morning, 
and I learnt from him some of his master’s tricks, 
which made me still more anxious about his victim. 
It seems she is very fond of her father, though she 
was prevailed on to desert him, and has never 
known a happy moment since her elopement, nor 
could she be easy without making frequent but 
secret inquiries concerning his health.” 44 Strange 
inconsistency !” muttered the colonel. “ This anxiety 
c 2 


30 


gave Clifford room to fear that she might, at some 
future moment, if discontented with him, return to 
her afflicted parent before he was tired of her; so 
what do you think he did ?” 

At this moment, Agnes, far more eager to hear 
what followed than the colonel, turned round, and 
fixing her eyes on his lordship with wild anxiety, 
could scarcely help saying, What did Clifford do, 
my lord ? 

“ He got his factotum, the man I mentioned, to 
personate a messenger, and to pretend to have been 
to her native town, and then he gave her such ac- 
counts as were best calculated to calm her anxiety; 
but the master stroke, which secured her remaining 
with him, was, his telling the pretended messenger 
to inform her that her father was married again.... 
though it is more likely, poor unhappy man, that he 
is dead, than that he is married.” 

At the mention of this horrible probability, Agnes 
lost all self-command, and screaming aloud, fell back 
on the knees of his astonished lordship, reiterating 
her cries with all the alarming helplessness of 
phrensy. 

44 Turn her out! turn her out !” echoed through 
the house... .for the audience supposed the noise 
proceeded from some intoxicated and abandoned 
woman ; and a man in the next box struck Agnes a 
blow on the shoulder, and, calling her by a name too 


31 


gross to repeat, desired her to leave the house, and 
act her drunken freaks elsewhere. 

Agnes, whom the gentlemen behind were sup- 
porting with great kindness and compassion, heard 
nothing of this speech, save the injurious epithet ad- 
plied to herself ; and alive only to what she thought 
the justice of it, u Did you hear that ?” she exclaim- 
ed, starting from his lordship’s supporting hand, 
who with the other was collaring the intoxicated 
brute that had insulted her.. did you hear that? 
Oh God! my brain is on fire!” Then, springing 
over the seat, she rushed out of the box, followed 
by the trembling and astonished Mrs. Askew, who 
in vain tried to keep pace with the desperate speed 
of Agnes. 

Before Agnes, with all her haste, could reach the 
bottom of the stairs, the farce ended, and the lob- 
bies began to fill. Agnes pressed forward, when, 
amongst the crowd, she saw a tradesman who lived 
near her father’s house. No longer sensible of 
shame, for anguish had annihilated it, she rushed 
towards him, and, seizing his arm, exclaimed, “ For 
the love of God, tell me how my father is!” The 
tradesman, terrified and astonished at the pallid 
wildness of her look, so unlike the countenance of 
successful and contented vice he would have expect- 
ed to see her wear, replied, w He is well, poor soul! 
but.......” “ But unhappy, I suppose?” interrupted 


32 


Agnes: “ Thank God he is well! but is he marri- 
ed?” “ Married! dear me, no; he is....” “ Do you 
think he would forgive me ?” eagerly rejoined Agnes. 
“ Forgive vou!” answered the man....“ How you 

talk! Belike he might forgive you, if. ” “ 1 

know what you would say,” interrupted Agnes 
again, u if I would return. Enough.. ..enough. God 
bless you! you have saved me from distraction.” 
So saying, she ran out of the house: Mrs. Askew 
having overtaken her, followed by the nobleman and 
the colonel, who, with the greatest consternation, had 
found, from an exclamation of Mrs. Askew’s, that 
the object of their compassion was Miss Fitzhenrv 
herself! 

What the consequence of his lordship’s address- 
ing Agnes might have been, cannot be known: 
whether he would have offered her the protection of 
a friend, if she wished to leave Clifford, and whether 
she would have accepted it, must remain uncertain; 
but before he could overtake her, Clifford met her, 
on his return from a neighboring coffee-house with 
his companion ; and, spite of her struggles and re- 
proaches, which astonished and alarmed him, he, 
with Mrs. Askew’s assistance, forced her into a 
hackney-coach, and ordered the man to drive home. 
No explanation took place during the ride. To all 
the caresses and questions of Clifford, she returned 
nothing but passionate exclamations against his 


33 


perfidy and cruelty. Mrs, Askew thought her in- 
sane ; Clifford wished to think her so ; but his con- 
science told him that, if by accident his conduct had 
been discovered to her, there was reason enough for 
the frantic sorrow he witnessed. 

At length they reached their lodgings, which 
were in Suffolk street, Charing-cross ; and Agnes, 
having at length obtained some composure, in as few 
words as possible related the conversation she had 
overheard. Clifford, as might be expected, denied 
the truth of what his lordship had advanced; but it 
was no longer in his power to deceive the at last 
awakened penetration of Agnes. Under his as- 
sumed unconcern, she clearly saw the confusion of 
detected guilt; and, giving utterance in very strong 
language to the contempt and indignation such com- 
plete depravity occasioned her to feel, she provoked 
Clifford, who was more than half intoxicated, boldly 
to avow what he was at first eager to deny ; and 
Agnes, who before shuddered at his hypocrisy, was 
now shocked at his unprincipled daring. 

“ But what right have you to complain?” added 
he. “ The cheat I put upon you relative to your 
father, was certainly meant in kindness; and though 
Miss Sandford will have my hand, you alone will 
ever possess my heart ; therefore it was my design 
to keep you in ignorance of my marriage, and retain 
you as the greatest of all my worldly treasures. 


34 


Plague on his prating lordship ! He has destroyed 
the prettiest arrangement ever made. However, 
we shall part good friends as ever.” 

“ Great God !” cried Agnes, raising her tearless 
eyes to heaven, u is it for a wretch like this, I have 
forsaken the best of parents ? But think not, sir,” 
she added, turning with a commanding air towards 
Clifford, whose temper, naturally warm, the term 
wretch had not soothed, u think not, fallen as I am, 
that I will ever condescend to receive protection and 
support, either for myself or child, from a man 
whom I know to be a consummate villain.' You 
have made me criminal, but you have not obliterat- 
ed my horror for crime, and my veneration for 
virtue ; and, in the fullness of my contempt, I in- 
form you, sir, that we shall meet no more.” 

u Not till to-morrow,” said Clifford: “this is our 
first quarrel, Agnes ; and the quarrels of lovers are 
only the renewal of love, you know; therefore, 
leaving this bitter, piercing air to guard my treasure 
for me till to-morrow, 1 take roy leave, and hope in 
the morning to find you in better humor.” 

So saying, he departed, secure, from the incle- 
mency of the weather and darkness of the night, 
that Agnes would not venture to go away before 
the morning, and resolved to return very early in 
order to prevent her departure, if her threatened 
resolution were any thing more than the frantic 


35 


expressions of a disappointed woman. Besides, he 
knew that at that time she was scantily supplied 
with money, and that Mrs. Askew dared not fur- 
nish her with any for the purpose of leaving him. 

But he left not Agnes, as he supposed, to vent 
her sense of injury in idle grief and inactive lamen- 
tation, but to think, to decide, and to act. Ar.d 
they, indeed, met no more. What was the rigor of 
the night to a woman whose heart was torn by all 
the pangs which convictions, such as those she had 
lately received, could give ? And hastily wrapping 
up her sleeping boy in a pelisse, which in a calmer 
moment she would have felt the want of herself, she 
took him in her arms ; then throwing a shawl over 
her shoulders, softly unbarred the hall door, and 
before the noise could have summoned any of the 
family, she was already out of sight. So severe 
was the weather, that even those accustomed to 
brave in ragged garments the pelting of the pitiless 
storm, shuddered as the freezing wind whistled 
around them, and crept with trembling knees to the 
wretched hovel that awaited them. But the win- 
ter’s wind blew unfelt by Agnes ; she was alive to 
nothing but the joy of having escaped from a villain, 
and the faint hope that she was hastening to obtain, 
perhaps, a father’s forgiveness. 

“Thank heaven!” she exclaimed, as she found 
herself at the rails along the green park.~.“ the air 


36 


which I breathe here is uncontaminated by his 
breath!” when, as the watchman called past eleven 
o’clock, the recollection that she had no place of 
shelter for the night occurred to her, and at the 
same instant she remembered that a coach set off at 
twelve from the White Horse in Piccadilly, that 
went within twelve miles of her native place. She 
immediately resolved to hasten thither, and, either 
in the inside or on the outside, to proceed on her 
journey as far as her finances would admit of, intend- 
ing to walk the rest of the way. She arrived at 
the inn just as the coach was setting off, and found, 
to her great satisfaction, one inside place vacant. 

Nothing worth mentioning occurred on the jour- 
ney. Agnes, with her veil drawn over her face, and 
holding her trembling boy in her arms, while the in- 
cessant shaking of her knee, and the piteous manner 
in which she sighed, gave evident marks of the agi- 
tation of her mind might excite in some degree the 
curiosity of her fellow travellers, but gave no promise 
of that curiosity being satisfied ; and she was suffered 
to remain unquestioned and unnoticed. At noon the 
next day the coach stopped for the travellers to dine, 
and stay a few hours to recruit themselves after 
their labors past, and fortify themselves against 
those yet to come. Here, Agnes, who, as she ap- 
proached nearer home, became afraid of meeting 
some acquaintance, resolved to change her dres 


37 


and to equip herself in such a manner as should, 
while it screened her from the inclemency of the 
weather, at the same time prevent her being recog- 
nized by any one. Accordingly she exchanged her 
pelisse, shawl, and a few other things, for a man’s 
great coat, a red cloth cloak with a hood to it, a pair 
of thick shoes, and some yards of flannel, in which 
she wrapt up her little Edward; and, having tied 
her straw bonnet under her chin with her veil, she 
would have looked like a country-woman dressed 
for market, could she have divested herself of a cer- 
tain delicacy of appearance and gracefulness of 
manner, the yet uninjured beauties of former days. 
But when they set off again she became an outside 
passenger, as she could not afford to continue an in- 
side one; and covering her child up in the red 
cloak which she wore over her coat, she took her 
station on the top of the coach with seeming firm- 
ness, but a breaking heart. 

Agnes expected to arrive within twelve miles of 
her native place long before it was dark, and reach 
the place of her destination before bed-time, un- 
known and unseen ; but she was mistaken in her ex- 
pectations, for the roads had been rendered so rug- 
ged by the frost, that it was late in the evening when 
the coach reached the spot whence Agnes was to 
commence her w r aik ; and by the time she had eaten 
her slight repast, and furnished herself with some 
v 


38 


necessaries to enable her to resist the severity of the 
weather, she found it was impossible for her to reach 
her long-forsaken home before day-break. 

Still she was resolved to go on : to pass another 
day in suspense concerning her father, and her fu- 
ture hopes of his pardon, was more formidable to 
her than the terrors of undertaking a lonely and 
painful walk. Perhaps, too, Agnes was not sorry 
to have a tale of hardship to narrate on her arrival 
at the house of her nurse, whom she meant to em- 
ploy as mediator between her and her offended 
parent. 

His child, his penitent child, whom he had brought 
up with the utmost tenderness, and screened with 
unremitting care from the ills of life, returning, to 
implore his pity and forgiveness, on foot, and unpro- 
tected, through all the dangers of lonely paths, and 
through the horrors of a winter’s night, must, she 
flattered herself, be a picture too affecting for Fitz- 
henry to think upon without seme commiseration; 
and she hoped he would in time bestow on her his 
forgiveness; to be admitted to his presence was 
a favor which she dared not presume either to ask 
or expect. 

But, in spite of the soothing expectation which 
she tried to encourage, a dread of she knew not 
what took possession of her mind. Every moment 
she looked fearfully around her, and, as she beheld 


39 


the wintery waste spreading on every side, she felt 
awe-struck at the desolateness of her situation* 
The sound of a human voice would, she thought, 
have been rapture to her ear ; but the next minute 
she believed it would have made her sink in terror 
to the ground. “Alas !” she mournfully exclaimed, 
a I was not always timid and irritable as I now 
feel... .but then I was not always guilty: O! my 
child! would I were once more innocent, like thee!” 
then, in a paroxysm of grief, she bounded forward 
on her wav, as if hoping to escape by speed from 
the misery of recollection. 

Agnes was now arrived at the beginning of a 
forest, about two miles in length, and within three 
of her native place. Even in her happiest days she 
never entered its solemn shade without feeling a 
sensation of fearful awe ; but now that she entered 
it, leafless as it was, a wandering wretched outcast, 
a mother without the sacred name of wife, and 
bearing in her arms the pledge of her infamy, her 
knees smote each other, and, shuddering as if danger 
were before her, she audibly implored the protection 
of Heaven. 

At this instant she heard a noise, and casting a 
startled glance into the obscurity before her, she 
thought she saw something like a human form 
running across the road. For a few moments she 
was motionless with terror; but, judging from the 


40 


Swiftness with which the object disappeared, that 
she had inspired as much terror as she felt, she ven~ 
tured to pursue her course. She had not gone far 
when she. again beheld the cause of her fear ; but, 
hearing as it moved, a noise like the clanking of a 
chain, she concluded it was some poor animal that 
had been turned out to graze. 

Still, as she gained on the object before her, she 
was convinced it was a man she beheld ; and as she 
heard the noise no longer, she concluded it had been 
the result of fancy only ; but that, with every other 
idea, was wholly absorbed in terror, when she saw 
the figure standing still, as if waiting for her ap- 
proach. “ Yet, why should I fear!” she inwardly 
observed ; “ it may be a poor wanderer like myself, 
who is desirous of a companion ; if so, I shall re- 
joice in such a rencontre.” 

As this reflection passed her mind, she hastened 
towards the stranger, when she saw him look hastily 
around him, start as if he beheld at a distance some 
object that alarmed him, and then, without taking 
any notice of her, run on as fast as before. But 
what can express the horror of Agnes, when she 
again heard the clanking of the chain, and discover- 
ed that it hung to the ankle of the stranger ! 41 Sure 
he must be a felon,” murmured Agnes : “ O ! my 

poor boy! perhaps we shall both be murdered!.... 
This suspense is not to be borne ; I will follow him, 


41 


and meet my fate at once.” Then, summoning alt 
her remaining strength, she followed the alarming 
fugitive. 

Alter she had walked nearly a mile further, and, 
as she did not overtake him, had flattered herself he 
had gone in a contrary direction, she saw him seat- 
ed on the ground, and, as before, turning his head 
back with a sort of convulsive quickness ; but as it 
was turned from her, she was convinced she was not 
the object he was seeking. Of her he took no no- 
tice ; and her resolution of accosting him failing 
when she approached, she walked hastily past, in 
hopes she might escape him entirely. As she pass- 
ed, she heard him talking and laughing to himself, 
and thence concluded, he was not a felon, but a 
lunatic escaped from confinement. Horrible as this 
idea was, her fear was so far overcome by pity, that 
she had a wish to return, and offer him some of the 
refreshment which she had procured for herself and 
child, when she heard him following her very fast, 
and was convinced by the sound, the dreadful sound 
of his chain, that he was coming up to her. 

The clanking of a fetter, when one knows it is 
fastened round the limbs of a fellow-creature, always 
calls forth in the soul of sensibility a sensation of 
horror; what then, at this moment, must have been 
its effect on Agnes, who was trembling for her life, 
for that of her child, and looking in vain for a 
P 2 


42 


protector round the still solemn waste ! Breathless 
with apprehension, Agnes stopped as the maniac 
gained upon her, and, motionless and speechless, 
awaited the Consequence of his approach. 

“ Woman!” said he, in a hoarse, hollow tone.... 
“ Woman! do you see them? do you see them?”.... 
“ Sir! pray what did you say, sir?” cried Agnes, in 
a tone of respect, and curtseying as she spoke.. ..for 
what is so respectful as fear ?....“ I can’t see them,” 
resumed he, not attending to her, “ I have escaped 
them ! Rascals ! Cowards ! I have escaped them !” 
and then he jumped and clapped his hands for joy. 

Agnes, relieved in some measure from her fears, 
and eager to gain the poor wretch’s favor, told him 
she rejoiced at his escape from the rascals, and 
hoped they would not overtake him : but while she 
spoke he seemed wholly inattentive, and jumping as 
he walked, made his fetter clank in horrid exulta- 
tion. The noise at length awoke the child, who, 
seeing a strange object before him, and hearing a 
sound so unusual, screamed violently, and hid his 
face in his mother’s bosom. 

“Take it away! take it away!” exclaimed the 
maniac.. ,. u I do not like children.” And Agnes, 
terrified at the thought of what might happen, tried 
to soothe the trembling boy to rest, but in vain ; the 
child still screamed, and the angry agitation of the 
maniac increased.. Strangle it! strangle it!” he 


43 

cried.. do it this moment, or ” Agnes, almost 

frantic with terror, conjured the unconscious boy, if 
he valued his life, to cease his cries ; and then, the 
next moment, she conjured the wretched man to 
spare her child; but, alas! she spoke to those in- 
capable of understanding her... .a child and a mad- 
man ! The terrified boy still shrieked, the lunatic 
still threatened, and, clenching his fist, seized the 
left arm of Agnes, who, with the other, attempted 
to defend her infant from his fury; when, at the 
very moment that his fate seemed inevitable, a sud- 
den gale of wind shook the leafless branches of the 
surrounding trees, and the madman, fancying the 
noise proceeded from his pursuers, ran cff with the 
rapidity of lightning. 

Immediately, the child, relieved from the sight, 
and the sound which alarmed it, and exhausted by 
the violence of its cries, sunk into a sound sleep on 
the throbbing bosom of its mother. But, alas ! Ag- 
nes knew this was but a temporary escape. ...the 
maniac might return, and again the child might 
wake in terrors ; but scarcely had the thought pass- 
ed her mind, when she saw him returning; but, 
as he walked slowly, the noise was not so great as 
before. 

w I hate to hear children cry,” said he, as he ap- 
proached. “ Mine is quiet now,” replied Agnes; 
then, recollecting she had some food in her pocket, 


44 


she offered some to the stranger, in order to divert 
his attention from the child. He snatched it from 
her hand instantly, and devoured it with terrible 
voraciousness : but again he exclaimed, “ I do not 
like children; if you trust them they will betray 
you,” and Agnes offered him food again, as if to 
bribe him to spare her helpless boy.. I had a child 
once.... but she is dead, poor soul!” continued he, 
taking Agnes by the arm, and leading her gently 
forward. “ And you loved her very tenderly, I 
suppose ?” said Agnes, thinking the loss of his child 
had occasioned his malady ; but, instead of answer- 
ing her he went on They said she ran away 
from me with a lover.. ..but I knew they lied... .she 
was good, and would not have deserted the father 
who doted on her. Besides, I saw her funeral my- 
self. Liars, rascals, as they are!... .do not tell any 
one....! got away from them last night, and am now 
going to visit her grave.” 

A death-like sickness, an apprehension so horrible 
as to deprive her almost of sense, took possession of 
the soul of Agnes. She eagerly endeavored to ob- 
tain a sight of the stranger’s face, but in vain, as his 
hat was pulled over his forehead, and his chin rested 
on his bosom. They had now nearly gained the 
end of the forest, and day was just breaking; Ag- 
nes, as soon as they entered the open plain, seized 
the arm of the madman to force him to look towards 


45 


her, for speak to him she could not# He felt, and 
perhaps resented the importunate pressure of her 
hand, for he turned hastily round, when, dread- 
ful confirmation of her fears, Agnes beheld her 
hither!!! 

It was indeed Fitzhenry, driven to madness by 
his daughter’s desertion and disgrace ! 

After the elopement of, Agnes, Fitzhenry entirely 
neglected his business, and thought and talked of 
nothing but the misery he experienced. In vain 
did his friends represent to him the necessity of his 
making amends, by increased diligence, for some 
alarming losses in trade which he had lately sus- 
tained. She, for whom alone he toiled, had desert- 
ed him, and ruin had no terrors for him. “ I was 
too proud of her,” he used mournfully to repeat...® 
w and Heaven has humbled me even in her by 
whom I offended.” 

Month after month elapsed, and no intelligence 
of Agnes. Fitzhenry’s dejection increased, and his 
affairs became more and more involved : at length, 
absolute and irretrievable bankruptcy was become 
his portion, when he learnt, from authority not to be 
doubted, that Agnes was living with Clifford as his 
acknowledged mistress. This was the death-stroke 
to his reason : and the only way in which his friends 
(relations he had none, or only distant ones) could 
be of any further service to him was, by procuring 


46 


him admission into a private mad-house in the 
neighborhood. 

Of his recovery little hope was entertained. The 
constant theme of his ravings was his daughter. 
Sometimes he bewailed her as dead ; at other times, 
he complained of her as ungrateful; but so com- 
plete was the overthrow his reason had received, 
that he knew no one, and took no notice of those 
whom friendship or curiosity led to his cell: yet he 
was always meditating his escape, and though iron- 
ed in consequence of it, the night he met Agnes, he 
had, after incredible difficulty and danger, effected 
his purpose. 

But to return to Agnes, who, when she beheld in 
her insane companion her injured father, the victim 
probably of her guilt, let fall her sleeping child, and, 
sinking on the ground, extended her arms towards 
Fitzhenry, articulating in a faint voice, “ O God! 
my father!” then prostrating herself at his feet, she 
clasped his knees in an agony too great for utter- 
ance. 

At the name of “ father,” the poor maniac start- 
ed, and gazed on her earnestly, with savage wild- 
ness, while his whole frame became convulsed ; and 
rudely disengaging himself from her embrace, he 
ran from her a few paces, and then dashed himself 
on the ground in all the violence of phrensy. He 
raved, he tore his hair; he screamed and uttered 


47 


the most dreadful execrations; and with his teeth 
shut and his hands clenched, he repeated the word 
father, and said the name was mockery to him. 

Agnes, in mute and tearless despair, beheld the 
dreadful scene; in vain did her affrighted child cling 
to her gown, and in its half formed accents entreat 
to be taken to her arms again; she saw, she heeded 
nothing but her father; she was alive to nothing 
but her own guilt and its consequences; and she 
awaited with horrid composure the cessation of 
Fitzhenry’s phrensy, or the direction of its fury 
towards the child. , 

At last, she saw him fall down exhausted and 
motionless, and tried to hasten to him ; but she was 
unable to move, and, reason and life seemed at once 
forsaking her, when Filzhenry suddenly started up, 
and approached her. Uncertain as to his purpose, ^ 
Agnes caught her child to her bosom, and falling 
again on her knees, turned on him her almost 
closing eyes; but his countenance was rnild, and 
gently patting her forehead, on which hung the 
damps of approaching insensibility, “ Poor thing!” 
he cried, in a tone of the utmost tenderness and 
compassion, “ Poor thing!” and then gazed on her 
with such inquiring and mournful looks, that tears 
once more found their way, and relieved her burst- 
ing brain, while, seizing her father’s hand, she press- 
ed 4 with frantic emotion to her lips. 


48 


Fitzhenry looked at her with great kindness, and 
suffered her to hold his hand, then exclaimed, “ Poor 
thing! don’t crv....don’t cry.... I can’t cry.... I have 
not cried for many years ; not since my child died.... 
for she is dead, is she not?” looking earnestly at Ag- 
nes, who could only answer by her tears. 44 Come,” 
said he, 44 come,” taking hold of her arm, then 
laughing wildly, 44 Poor thing! you will not leave 
me, will you?” “ Leave you!” she replied, “ Never! 
I will live with you.... die with you.” 44 True, true,” 
cried he, 44 she is dead, and we will" go visit her 
grave.” So saying, he dragged Agnes forward with 
great velocity ; but as it was along the path leading 
to the town, she made no resistance. 

Indeed, it was such a pleasure to her to see that 
though he knew her not, the sight of her was wel- 
come to her unhappy parent, that she sought to 
avoid thinking of the future, and to be alive only to 
the present ; she tried also to forget that it was to 
his not knowing her she owed the looks of tender- 
ness and pity he bestowed on her, and that the hand 
which kindly held hers, would, if recollection re- 
turned, throw her from him with just indignation. 

But she w r as soon awakened to redoubled anguish 
by hearing Fitzhenry, as he looked behind him, ex- 
claim, 44 They are coming, they are coming:” and 
as he said this, he ran with frantic haste across the 
common*. Agnes, immediately looking behind her, 


49 


saw three men pursuing her father at full speed, 
and concluded that they were the keepers of the 
bedlam whence he had escaped. Soon after, she 
saw the poor lunatic coming towards her, and had 
scarcely time to lay her child gently on the ground, 
before Fitzhenry threw himself in her arms, and 
implored her to save him from his pursuers. 

In an agony that mocks description, Agnes clasp- 
ed him to her heart, and awaited in trembling agita- 
tion the approach of the keepers. “ Hear me, hear 
me !”ishe cried, “ I conjure you to leave- him to my 
care: he is my father, and you may safely trust him 
with me.” u Your father!” replied one of the men; 
“ and what then, child ? You could do nothing for 
him, and you should be thankful to us, young wo- 
man, for taking him off your hands. So come 
along, master, come along;” he continued,, seizing 
Fitzhenry, who could with difficulty, be separated 
from Agnes; while another of the keepers*. laugh- 
ing as he beheld her wild anguish, said, “ Wc shall 
have the daughter as well as the father soon, I see, 
for I do not believe, there is a pin to chuse between 
them.” 

But, severe as the sufferings of Agnes were al- 
ready, a still greater pang awaited her. The keepers 
finding it a very difficult task to confine Fitzhenry, 
threw him down, and tried by blows to terrify him 
•;,to acquiescence, At this outrage, Agnes became 

E 


50 


frantic indeed, and followed them with shrieks, en- 
treaties, and reproaches ; while the struggling victim 
called on her to protect him, as they bore him by 
violence along, till, exhausted with anguish and 
fatigue, she fell insensible on the ground, and lost in 
a deep swoon the consciousness of her misery. 

How long she remained so is uncertain ; but 
when she recovered her senses, all was still around 
her, and she missed her child. Starting up, and 
looking round with renewed phrensy, she saw it 
lying at some distance from her, and on taking it 
up, she found it in a deep sleep. The horrid ap- 
prehension immediately rushed on her mind, that 
such a sleep, in the midst of cold so severe, was the 
sure forerunner of death. 

‘‘Monster!” she exclaimed, “ destroyer of thy 
child, as well as father! But perhaps it is not yet 
too late, and my curse is not completed.” So say" 
ing, she ran, or rather flew, along the road ; and 
seeing a house at a distance, she made towards it, 
and, bursting open the door, beheld a cottager and 
bis family at breakfast ; then, sinking on her knees, 
and holding out to the woman of the house her 
sleeping boy, w For the love of God,” she cried, 
“ look here! look here! Save him! O, save him!” 
A mother appealing to the heart of a mother is 
rarely unsuccessful in her appeal. The cottager’s 
wife was as eager to begin the recovery of the child 


51 


of Agnes as Agnes was herself, and in a moment 
the whole family was employed in its service •, nor 
was it long before they were rewarded for their hu- 
manity by its complete restoration. * 

The joy of Agnes was frantic as her grief had 
been. She embraced them all by turns, in a loud 
voice invoked blessings on their heads, and promis- 
ed, if she was ever rich, to make their fortune: 
lastly, she caught the still languid boy to her heart, 
and almost drowned it with her tears. 

In the cottager and his family, a scene like this 
excited wonder as'well as emotion. He and his wife 
were good parents, they Ipved their children, would 
have been anxious during their illness, and would 
have sorrowed for their loss: but to these violent 
expressions and actions, the result of cultivated sen- 
sibility, they were wholly unaccustomed, and could 
scarcely help imputing them to insanity, an idea 
which the pale cheek and wild look of Agnes 
strongly confirmed ; nor did it lose strength, when 
Agnes, who, in terror at her child’s danger and joy 
for his safety, had forgotten even her father and his 
situation, suddenly recollecting herself, exclaimed, 
“ Have I dared to rejoice? Wretch that I am! 
Oh! no. ...there is no joy for me!” The cottager 
and his wife, on hearing these words, looked signifi- 
cantly at each other. 


52 


Agnes soon after started up, and, clasping her 
hands, cried out, “ O I ray father, ray dear, dear 
father ! thou art past cure ; and despair must be my 
portion.” 

u O! you are unhappy because your father is ill,” 
observed the cottager’s wife; “ but do not be sor- 
rowful on that account, he may get better perhaps.” 
u Never, never!” replied Agnes ; c< yet, who knows?” 
u Aye... .who knows indeed,” resumed the good 
woman. “ But if not, you nurse him yourself, I 
suppose, and it will be a comfort to you to know he 
has every thing done for him that can be done.” 
Agnes sighed deeply. “ I lost my own father,” 
continued she, “ last winter, and a hard trial it was, 
to be sure ; but then it consoled me to think I made 
his end comfortable. Besides, my conscience told 
me, that, except here and there, I had always done 
ray duty by him, to the best of my knowledge.” 
Agnes started from her seat, and walked rapidly 
round the room. w He smiled on me,” resumed 
her kind hostess, wiping her eyes, “ to the last mo- 
ment; and just before the breath left him, he said, 
* Good child, good child.’ O ! it must be a terrible 
thing to lose one’s parents when one has not done 
one’s duty to them.” 

At tlies e words, Agnes, contrasting her conduct 
and feelings with those of this artless and innocent 
woman, was overcome with despair, and, seizing a 


\ 


53 


knife that lay by her, endeavored to put an end to 
her existence ; but the cottager caught her hand in 
time to prevent the blow, and his wife easily disarm- 
ed her, as her violence instantly changed into a sort 
of stupor ; then throwing herself back on the bed on 
which she was sitting, she lay with her eyes fixed 
and incapable of moving/ 

The cottager and his wife now broke forth into 
expressions of wonder and horror at the crime she 
was going to commit, and the latter, taking little Ed- 
ward from the lap of her daughter, held it towards 
Agnes, “ See,” cried she, as tlie child stretched forth 
its little arms to embrace her, “ unnatural mother, 
would you forsake your child?” 

These wordsf, assisted by the caresses of the child 
himself, roused Agnes from her stupor. “ Forsake 
him! Never, never!” she faltered out, and, snatch- 
ing him to her bosom, threw herself back on a pillow 
the good woman had placed under her head ; and 
soon, to the great joy of the compassionate family, 
both mother and child fell into a sound sleep. The 
cottager then repaired to his daily labor, and his 
wife and children began their household tasks; but 
ever and anon they cast a watchful glance on their 
unhappy guest, dreading lest she should make a 
second attempt on her life. 

The sleep of both Agnes and her child was so 
long and heavy, that night was closing in when the 

E 2 


54 


little boy awoke, and by his cries for food, broke the 
rest of his unhappy mother. 

But consciousness returned not with returning 
sense: Agnes looked around her, astonished at her 
situation. At length, by slow degrees, the dreadful 
scenes of the preceding night, and her own rash at- 
tempt, burst on her recollection ; she shuddered at 
the retrospect, and, clasping her hands together, re- 
mained some moments in speechless prayer: then 
she arose ; and smiling mournfully at sight of her 
little Edward eating voraciously the milk and bread 
that was’ set before him, she seated herself at the 
table, and tried to partake of the coarse but whole- 
some food provided for her. As she approached, 
she saw the cottager’s wife remove the knives, and 
leave a fork and spoon only for her to eat with. 
This circumstance forcibly recalled her rash -action, 
and drove away her returning appetite. a You may 
trust me now,” said she; I shrink with horror 
from my wicked attempt on my life, and swear, in 
the face of Heaven, never to repeat it; no... .my only 
wish now is, to live and to suffer.” 

Soon after, the cottager’s wife made an excuse 
for bringing back a knife to the table, to prove to 
Agnes her confidence in her word ; but this well- 
meant attention was lost on her: she sat leaning 
on her elbow, and wholly absorbed in her own 
meditations > 


55 


When it was completely night, Agnes arose to 
depart. “ My kind friends,” said she, w who have 
so hospitably received and entertained a wretched 
wanderer, believe me I shall never forget the obli- 
gations I owe you, though I can never hope to re- 
pay them ; but, accept this (taking her last half 
guinea from her pocket) as a pledge of my inclina- 
tion to reward your kindness. If I am ever rich 
you shall....” Here her voice failed her, and she 
burst into tears. •; - 

This hesitation gave the virtuous people she ad- 
dressed, an opportunity of rejecting her offers. 
u What we did, we did because we could not help 
it,” said the cottager. u You would not have me 
see a fellow-creature going to kill soul and body too, 
and not prevent it, would you?” “ And as to 
saving the child,” cried the wife, “ am I not a 
mother myself, and can I help feeling for a mother*? 
Poor little thing! it looked so piteous too, and felt 
so cold !” 

Agnes could not speak ; but still, by signs, she 
tendered the money to their acceptance. “ No, no,” 
resumed the cottager, “ keep it for those who may 
not be willing to do you a service for nothing;” and 
Agnes reluctantly replaced the half guinea. But 
then a fresh source of altercation began ; the cotta- 
ger insisted upon seeing Agnes to town, and she in- 
sisted upon going by herself : at last, she agreed he 


56 


should go with her as far as the street where her 
friends lived, wait for her at the end of it, and if 
they were not living, or were removed, she was to 
return, and sleep at the cottage. 

Then, with a beating heart and dejected counte- 
nance, Agnes took her child in her arms, and, lean- 
ing on her companion, with slow and unsteady steps 
she began her walk to her native place, once the 
scene of her happiness and her glory, but now' about 
to be the witness of her misery and her shame* 

As they drew T near the town, Agnes saw T oh one 
side of the road a new’ building, and instantly hur- 
ried from it as fast as her trembling limbs could 
carry her. “ Did you hear them?” asked the cot- 
tager. “Hear whom?” said Agnes. “The poor 
creatures,” returned her companion, u who are con- 
fined there. That is the new bedlam. ...and hark! 
what a loud scream that w r as !” Agnes, unable to 
support herself, staggered to a bench projecting from 
the court surrounding the building, while the cotta- 
ger, unconscious why She stopped, observed it w r as 
strange she should like to stay and hear the poor 
creatures; for his part he thought it shocking to 
hear them shriek, and still more so to hear them 
laugh; “for it is so piteous to hear those laugh 
who have so much reason to cry.” 

Agnes had not power to interrupt him, and he 
went on: “ This house was built by subscription; 


57 


and it was begun by a bind gentleman of the name 
of Fitzhenry, who afterwards, poor soul, being made 
low in the world by losses in trade, and by having 
his brain turned by a good-for-nothing daughter, 
was one of the first patients in it himself.” Here 
Agnes, to whom this recollection had but too forci- 
bly occurred already* groaned aloud. “ What, tired 
so soon?” said her companion. u I doubt you have 
not been used to stir about., c.you have been too 
tenderly brought up. Ah ! tender parents often 
spoil children, and they never thank them for it 
when they grow up neither, and often come to no 
good besides.” 

Agnes was going to make some observation, 
wrung from her by the poignancy of self-upbraiding, 
when she heard a loud cry as of one in agony; and 
fancying it her father’s voice, she started up, and, 
stopping her ears, ran towards the town so fast that 
it was with difficulty the cottager could overtake 
her. When he did so, he was surprised at the agi- 
tation of her manner. “ What, I suppose you 
thought they were coming after you ?” said he. 
“ But there was no danger....! dare say it was only 
an unruly one whom they were beating.” Agnes, 
on hearing this, absolutely screamed with agony ; 
and, seizing the cottager’s arm, u Let us hasten to 
the town,” said she in a hollow and broken voice, 


58 


u while I have strength enough left to carry me 
thither.” 

At length they entered its walls, and the cottager 
said, u Here we are at last. A welcome home to 
you, young woman.” u Welcome ! and home to 
me!” cried Agnes wildly. u I have no home now.: 

I can expect no welcome ! Once indeed ” 

Here, overcome with recollections almost too pain- 
ful to be endured, she turned from him and sobbed 
aloud, while the kind-hearted man could scarcely 
forbear shedding tears at sight of such mysterious, 
yet evidently real distress. 

In happier days, when Agnes used to leave home 
on visits to her distant friends, anticipation of the 
welcome she should receive on her return was, per- 
haps, the greatest pleasure she enjoyed during her 
absence. As the adventurer to India, while toiling 
for wealth, never loses sight of the hope that he 
shall spend his fortune in his native land; so Agnes, 
whatever company she saw, whatever amusements 
she partook of, looked eagerly forward to the hour 
when she should give her expecting father, and her 
affectionate companions, a recital of all she had 
heard and seen. For though she had been absent a 
few weeks only, “ her presence made a little holi- 
day,” and she was received by Fitzhenry with de- 
light too deep to be expressed ; while, even earlier 
than decorum warranted, her friends were thronging 


59 


to her door to welcome home the heightener of 
their pleasures, and the gentle soother of their sor- 
rows ; for Agnes “ loved and felt for all,” she had 
a smile ready to greet the child of prosperity, and a 
tear for the child of adversity. As she was thus 
honored, thus beloved, no wonder the thoughts of 
home, and of returning home, were wont to suffuse 
the eyes of Agnes with tears of exquisite pleasure; 
and that when her native town appeared in view, a 
group of expecting and joyful faces used to swim 
before her sight, while, hastening forward to have 
the first glance of her, fancy used to picture her 
father: now, dread reverse! after a long absence, 
^ an absence of years, she was returning to the same 
place, inhabited by the same friends, but the voices 
that used to be loud in pronouncing her welcome, 
would now be loud in proclaiming indignation at 
her sight; the eyes that used to beam with gladness 
at her presence, would now be turned from her 
with disgust; and the fond father, who used to be 
counting the moments till she arrived, was now.... 
I shall not go on. ...suffice, that Agnes felt, to u her 
heart’s core,” all the bitterness of the contrast. 

When they arrived near the place of her destina- 
tion, Agnes stopped, and told the cottager that they 
must part. u So much the worse,” said the good 
man. “ I do not know how it is, but you are sor- 
i rowful, yet so kind and gentle, somehow, that both 


60 


my wife and I have taken a liking to you: you must 
not be angry, but we cannot help thinking you are 
not one of us, but a lady, though you are so dis- 
guised, and so humble.. ..but misfortune spares no 
one, you know.” 

Agnes, affected and gratified by these artless ex- 
pressions of good will, replied, “ I have, indeed, 
known better days.” “ And will again, I hope with 
all my heart and soul,” interrupted the cottager with 
great warmth* “ I fear not,”' replied Agnes, “ my 
dear worthy friend.” “ Nay, young lady,” rejoined 
he, u my wife and I are proper to be your servants, 
not friends.” “ You are my friends, perhaps my 
only friends,” returned Agnes mournfully: “per- 
haps there is not, at this moment, another hand in 
the universe that would not reject mine, or another 
tongue that would not upbraid me.” “ They must 
be hard hearted wretches, indeed, who could up- 
braid a poor woman for her misfortunes,” cried the 
cottager, “ however, you shall never want a friend 
while I live. You know I saved your life; and 
somehow, I feel now as if you belonged to me. I 
once saved one of my pigeons from the hawk, and I 
believe were I starving, I could not now bear to kill 
the little creature; it would seem like eating my 
own flesh and blood....so I am sure I could never 
desert you,” “ You have not heard my story,” 
replied Agnes; “but you shall know who I ae; 


61 


soon, and then, if you still feel disposed to offer me 
your friendship, I shall be proud to accept it.” 

The house to which Agnes was hastening v. as 
that of her nurse, from whom she had always ex- 
perienced the affection of a mother, and hoped now 
to receive a temporary asylum ; but she might not 
be living.. ..and, with a beating heart, Agnes knock- 
ed at the door. It was opened by Fanny, her nurse’s- 
daughter, the play-fellow -of Agnes’s childhood. 
u Thank Heaven !” ^aid Agnes, as she hastened 
back to the cottager, “ I hope I have at least one 
friend left;” and telling him he might go home 
again, as she was almost certain of shelter for the. 
night, the poor man shook her heartily hy the hand, 
prayed God to bless her, and departed. 

Agnes then returned to Fanny, who was still 
standihg by the door, wondering w T ho had knocked 
at so late an hour, and displeased at being kept so 
long in the cold. “ Will you admit me, Fanny, and 
give me 'shelter for the night?” said Agnes, in a 
faint and broken voice. “ Gracious Heaven! who 
are you?” cried Fanny, starting back. “ Do you 
not know me ?” she replied, looking earnestly in her 
face. Fanny again started; then bursting into tears, 
as she drew Agnes forward, and closed the door.... 
“ O God! it is my dear young lady!” “ And are 
you sorry to see me?” replied Agne.Si “Sorry!” 
answered the other, “ Oh, no! but to see you thus* 

F ^ 


62 


Oh! my dear lady, what you must have suffered! 
Thank Heaven my poor mother is not alive to see 
this day!” 

u And is she dead?” cried Agnes, turning very 
iaint, and catching hold of a chair to keep her from 
falling, “ then is the measure of my affliction full : I 
have lost my oldest and best friend!” “ I am not 
dead,” said Fanny respectfully. “ Excellent, kind 
creature!” continued Agnes, “ I hoped so much 
alleviation of my misery from her affection !....” “ Do 
you hope none from mine ?” , rejoined Fanny in a 
tone of reproach. “ Indeed, my dear young lady, 
I love you as well as my mother did, and will do as 
much for you as she would have done; Bo I not 
owe all I have to you? and now that you are in 
trouble, perhaps in want too.... but no, that cannot 
and shall not be,” wringing her hands and pacing 
the room with frantic violence: “ I can’t bear to 
think of such a thing. That ever I should live to 
see my dear young lady in want of the help she was 
always so ready to give!” 

Agnes tried to comfort her; but the sight of her 
distress, notwithstanding, was soothing to her, as it 
convinced her she was still dear to one pure and af* 
fectionate heart. 

During this time, little Edward remained covered 
up so closely, that Fanny did not know what the 
bundle was that Agnes held in her lap; but when 


63 


she lifted up the cloak that concealed him, Fanny 
was in an instant kneeling by his side, and gazing 

on him with admiration. “ Is it.... is it ” said 

Fanny with hesitation. u It is my child,” replied 
Agnes, sighing; and Fanny lavished on the uncon- 
scious bov the caresses which respect forbade h£r to 
bestow on the mother. 

u Fanny,” said Agnes, “ you say nothing of your 
husband?” “ He is dead,” replied Fanny, with 
emotion. u Have you any children?” “ None.” 
“ Then will you promise me, if I die, to be a mo- 
ther to this child ?” Fanny seized her hand, and in 
a voice half choakedby sobs, said, “ I promise you.” 
“ Enough,” cried Agnes; then holding out her 
arms to her humble friend, Fanny’s respect yielded 
to affection, and, falling on Agnes’s neck, she. sobbed 
aloud. 

“ My dear Fanny,” said Agnes, u I have a ques- 
tion to ask, and I charge you to answer it truly.” 
“ Do not ask me, do not ask me, for indeed I dare 
not answer you,” replied Fanny in great agitation. 
Agnes guessed the cause, and hastened to tell her 
that the question was not concerning her father, as 
she was acquainted with his situation already, and 
proceeded to ask whether her elopement and ill 
conduct had at all hastened the death of her nurse, 
who was in ill health when she went away. “ Oh 
no,” replied Fanny, “ she never believed that you 


64 


could be gone off willingly, but was sure you were 
spirited away, and she died, expecting you would 
some day return, and take the law of the villain; 
and no doubt she was right, though nobody thinks 
so now but me, for you were always too good to do 
wrong.” 

Agnes was too honorable to take to herself the 
merit she did not deserve : she therefore owned she 
was indeed guilty; “nor should I,” she added, 
u have dared to intrude myself, on you, or solicit 
you to let me remain under your roof, were I not 
severely punished for my crime, and resolved to 
pass the rest of my days in solitude and labor.” 
44 You should not presume to intrude yourself upon 
me !” replied Fanny. 44 Do not talk thus, if you do 
net mean to break my heart.” 44 Nay, Fanny,” 
answered Agnes, 44 it would be presumption in any 
woman who has quitted the path of virtue to intrude 
herself, however high her rank might be, on the 
meanest of her acquaintance whose honor is spotless’. 
Nor would I thus throw myself on your generosity, 
were I not afraid that if I were to be unsbbthed by 
the presence of a sympathising friend, I should sink 
beneath my sorrows, and want resolution to fulfil the 
hard task my duty enjoins me.” 

I shall not attempt to describe the anguish of 
Fanny when she thought of her young lady, the 
pride of her heart, as she used to call her, being 


65 


reduced so low in the world, nor the sudden bursts 
of joy she gave way to the next moment when she 
reflected that Agnes was returned, never perhaps to 
leave her again. 

Agnes wore away great part of the night in tell- 
ing Fanny her mournful tale, and in hearing from 
her a full account of her father’s sufferings,, bank- 
ruptcy, and consequent madness. At day-breafeshe 
retired to bed, not to sleep, but ruminate on the ro- 
mantic, yet, in her eves, feasible plan, she had formed 
for the future; while Fanny, wearied out by the 
violent emotions she had undergone, sobbed herself 
to sleep by her side. 

The next morning, Agnes did not rise till Fanny 
had been up some time; and when she seated her- 
self at the breakfast-table, she was surprised to see 
it spread in a manner which ill accorded with her or 
Fanny’s situation. On asking the reason, Fanny 
owned she could not bear her dear young lady 
should fare as she did only, and had therefore pro- 
vided a suitable breakfast for her. “ But you for- 
get,” said Agnes, “ that if I remain with you, 
neither you nor I can afford such breakfasts as 
these.” “ True,” replied Fanny mournfully, “ then 
you must consider this as only a welcome, madam.” 
a Aye ” rejoined Agnes, “ the prodigal is returned, 
and you have killed the fatted calf.” Fanny burst 
into tears ; while Agnes, shocked at having excited 
r 2 


66 


them by the turn she unguardedly gave to her poor 
friend’s attention, tried to sooth her into compo- 
sure, and affected a gaiety which she was far from 
feeling. 

u Now then to my first task,” said Agnes, rising 
as soon as she had finished her breakfast : u I am 
going to call on Mr. Seymour; you say he lives 
where he formerly did.” “ To call on Mr. Sey- 
mour!” exclaimed Fanny; u Oh my dear madam, 
do not go near him, I beseech you; he is a very 
severe man, and will affront you, depend upon it.” 
u No matter,” rejoined Agnes, w I have deserved 
humiliation, and will not shrink from it: but his 
daughter Caroline, you know, was once my dearest 
friend, and she will not suffer him to trample on the 
fallen ; and it is necessary I should apply to him in 
order to succeed in my scheme.” “ What scheme ?” 
replied Fanny. u You would not approve it, Fanny, 
therefore I shall not explain it to you at present: 
but, when I return, perhaps I shall tell you all.” 
“ But you are not going so soon? not in day-light, 
surely? If you should be insulted!....” 

Agnes started with horror at this proof which 
Fanny had unguardedly given, how hateful her 
guilt had made her in a place that used to echo with 
her praises; but, recovering herself, she said, she 
should welcome insults as part of the expiation she 
meant to perform. M But if you will not avoid 


67 




them for your own sake, pray, pray do for mine,” 
exclaimed Fanny. “ If you were to be ill used, I 
am sure I should never survive it: so, if you must 
go to Mr. Seymour’s, at least oblige me in not 
going before dark and, affected by this fresh 
mark of her attachment, Agnes consented to stay. 

At six o’clock in the evening, while the family 
.were sitting round the fire, and Caroline Seymour 
was expecting the arrival of her lover, to whom she 
was to be united in a few days, Agnes knocked at 
Mr, Seymour’s door, having positively forbidden 
Fanny to accoippany her. Caroline, being on the 
watch for her intended bridegroom, started at the 
sound ; and though the knock Agnes gave, did not 
much resemble that of an impatient lover, still, u It 
might be he... .he might mean to surprise her;” and, 
half opening the parlor door, she listened with a 
beating heart for the servant’s answering the knock. 

By this means, she distinctly heard Agnes ask 
whether Mr. Seymour was at home. The servant 
started, and stammered out that he believed his 
master was within^ while Caroline, springing for- 
ward, exclaimed, u I know that voice. ...oh yes! it 
must be she!” but her father, seizing her arm, 
pushed her back into the parlor, saying, “ I also know 
that voice, and I command you to stay where you 
are.” Then going up to Agnes, he desired her to 


68 


leave his house directly, as it should be no harbor 
for abandoned women and unnatural children. 

“ But will you not allow it to shelter for one mo- 
ment the wretched and the penitent ?” she replied. 
“ Father, my dear, dear father....” cried Caroline, 
again coming forward, but was again driven back 
by Mr. Seymour, who, turning to Agnes, bade her 
claim shelter from the man for whom she had left 
the best of parents ; and desiring the servant to shut 
the door in her face, he re-entered the parlor, 
whence Agnes distinctly heard the sobs of the com- 
passionate Caroline. 

But the servant was. kinder than the master, and 
could not obey the orders lie had received. “ O 
madam! Miss Fitzhenrv, do you not know me?” 
said he. “ I once lived with you ; have you for- 
gotten little William? I shall never forget you; you 
were the sweetest tempered young lady.. ..that ever 
I should see you thus!” * 

Before Agnes could reply, Mr. Seymour again 
angrily asked why his orders were not obeyed ; and 
Agnes, checking her emotion, besought William to 
deliver a message to his master. “ Tell him,” said 
she, u all I ask of him is, that he will use his interest 
to get me the place of servant in the house.. ..the 

bedlam I would say, where he will know what 

I mean ” she added, unable to utter the conclusion 


69 


of the sentence; and William, in a broken voice, 

delivered the message. 

“ Oh my poor Agnes !” cried Caroline passionate- 
ly, “ A servant! she a servant! and in such a place 
too!” William adding in a low voice, “ Ah! miss! 
and she looks so poor and wretched !” 

Meanwhile Mr. Seymour was walking up and 
down the room hesitating how to act: but reflecting 
that it was easier to forbid any communication with 
Agnes than to check it if once begun, he again de- 
sired Wiiliam to shut the door against her. “ You 
must do it yourself then,” replied William, u for I 
am not hard-hearted enough;” and Mr. Seymour, 
summoning up resolution, told Agnes there were 
other governors to whom she might apply, and then 
locked the door against her himself; while Agnes 
slowly and sorrowfully turned her steps towards 
Fanny’s more hospitable roof. 

She had not gone far, however, when she heard a 
light footstep behind her, and her name pronounced 
in a gentle, faltering voice ; and turning round, she 
beheld Caroline Seymour, who seizing her hand, 
forced something into it, hastily pressed it to her 
lips, and, without saying one word, suddenly disap- 
peared, leaving Agnes motionless as a statue, and, 
but for the parcel she held in her hand, disposed to 
think she was dreaming. Then, eager to see what 
it contained, she hastened back to Fanny, who heard 


10 


with indignation the reception she had met from 
Mr. Seymour, but on her knees invoked blessings 
on the head of Caroline, when, opening the parcel, 
she found it contained twenty guineas inclosed in a 
paper, on which was written, but almost effaced 
with tears, “ For my stiil dear Agnes.. ..would I 
dare say more!” 

This money the generous girl had taken from that 
allowed her for wedding clothes, and felt more de- 
light in relieving with it the wants even of a guilty 
fellow-creature, than purchasing the most splendid 
dress could have afforded her. And her present 
did more than she expected; it relieved the mind 
of Agnes : she had taught herself to meet without 
repining the assaults of poverty, but not to encoun- 
ter with calmness the scorn of the friends she loved. 

But Caroline and her kindness soon vanished 
again from her mind, and the idea cf her father, 
and her scheme, took entire possession of it. “ But 
it might not succeed..., no doubt Mr. Seymour 
would be her enemy.. ..still he had hinted she might 
apply to other governors ;” and Fanny having learnt 
that they were all to meet at the bedlam on business 
the next day, she resolved to write a note, request- 
ing to be allowed to appear before them. 

This note, Fanny, who was not acquainted with 
its contents, undertook to deliver; and to the great 
surprise of Agnes, (as she expected Mr. Seymour 


71 


would oppose it,) her request was instantly granted* 
Indeed it was Mr. Seymour himself who urged the 
compliance. 

There was not a kinder hearted man in the world 
than Mr. Seymour; and in his severity towards 
Agnes, he acted more from what he thought his 
duty, than from his inclination. He was the father 
of several daughters, and it was his opinion, that a 
parent could not too forcibly inculcate in the minds 
£>f young women the salutary truth, that loss of vir - ) 
tue must be, to them, the loss .of friends. Besides, 
his eldest daughter, Caroline, was going to be mar- 
ried to the son of a very severe rigid mother, then 
staying at the house, and he feared, that if he took 
any notice of the fallen Agnes, the old lady might 
conceive a prejudice against him and her daughter- 
in-law. Added to these reasons, Mr. Seymour was 
a very vain man, and never acted in any way with- 
out saying to himself, “ What will the w^orld sayt” 
Hence, though his first impulses were frequently 
good, the determinations of his judgment were often 
contemptible. 

But, however satisfied Mr. Seymour might be 
with his motives on this occasion, his feelings re- 
volted at the consciousness of the anguish he had 
occasioned Agnes. He wished, ardently wished, he 
had dared to have been kinder: and when Caroline, 
who was incapable of the meanness of concealing 


n 

any action which she thought it right to perform, 
told him of the gift she had in person bestowed on 
Agnes, he could scarce forbear commending her 
conduct; and, white he forbade any future inter- 
course between them, he was forced to turn away 
his head to hide the tear of gratified sensibility, and 
the smile of parental exultation: nevertheless, he 
did not omit to bid her keep her own counsel, “for, 
if your conduct were known,” added he, “ what 
would the world say?” 

No wonder then, that, softened as he was by 
Agnes’s application, though he deemed the scheme 
wild and impracticable, and afraid he had treated 
her unkindly, he w T as pleased to have an opportunity 
of obliging her, without injuring himself, and that 
her request to the governors was strengthened by 
his representations; nor is it extraordinary that, 
alive as he always was to the opinion of every one, 
he should dread seeing Agnes after the reception he 
had given her, more than she dreaded to appear be- 
fore the board. 

Agnes, who had borrowed of Fanny the dress of 
a respectable maid servant, when summoned to at- 
tend the governors, entered the room with a modest 
but dignified composure, prepared to expect, con- 
tumely, but resolved to endure it as became a con- 
trite heart. But uo contumely awaited her. 


In the hour of her prosperity, she had borne her 
faculties so meekly, and had been so careful never 
to humble anyone by showing a consciousness of 
superiority, that she had been beloved even more 
than she had been admired; and hard indeed must 
the heart of that man have been, who could have 
rejoiced that she herself was humbled. 

A dead, nay a solemn silence took place on her 
entrance. Every one present beheld with surprise, 
and with stolen looks of pity, the ravages which re- 
morse and anguish had made in her form, and the 
striking change in her apparel; for everyone had 
often followed with delight her graceful figure 
through the dance, and gazed with admiration on 
the tasteful varieties of her dress; every one had 
listened with pleasure to the winning sound of her 
voice, and envied Fitzhenry the possession of such 
a daughter. As they now beheld her, these recol- 
lections forcibly occurred to them: they agonized.... 
they overcame them. They thought of their own 
daughters, and secretly prayed Heaven to keep them 
from the voice of the seducer. Away went all their 
resolutions to receive Agnes with that open disdain 
and detestation which her crime deserved ; the sight 
of her disarmed them ; and not one amongst them, 
had, for some moments, firmness enough to speak. 
At last, u Pray sit down, Miss Fitzhenry,” said 
the president, in a voice hoarse with emotion : 


G 


74 


Here is a chair,” added another ; and Mr. Sey- 
mour, bowing as he did it, placed a seat for her 
near the fire. 

Agnes, who had made up her mind to bear ex- 
pected indignities with composure, was not proof 
against unexpected kindness ; and hastily turning 
towards the window, she gave vent to her sensations 
in an agony of tears. But recollecting the business 
on which she came, she struggled with her feelings ; 
and on being desired by the president to explain to 
the board what she wanted, she began to address 
them in a faint and faltering voice,; however, as she 
proceeded, she gained courage, remembering it was 
her interest to affect her auditors, and make them 
enter warmly into her feelings and designs. She 
told her whole story, in as concise a manner as pos- 
sible, from the time of her leaving Clifford to her 
rencontre with her father in the forest, and his be- 
ing torn from her by the keepers; and when she 
was unable to go on, from the violence of her emo- 
tions, she had the satisfaction of seeing that the tears 
of her auditors kept pace with her own. When her 
narrative ended, she proceeded thus : 

“ I come now, gentlemen, to the reason of my 
troubling you. From the impression the sight of 
me made on my father, I feel a certain conviction 
that, were I constantly with him, I might in time be 
able to restore to hina that reason my guilt has 


75 


deprived him of. To effect this purpose, it is my 
wish to become a servant in this house. If I should 
not succeed in my endeavors, I am so sure he will 
have pleasure in seeing me, that I feel it my duty 
to be with him, even on that account; and if there 
be any balm for a heart and conscience so wounded 
as mine, I must find it in devoting my future days 
to alleviate, though I cannot cure, the misery I have 
occasioned. And if,” added she with affecting en- 
thusiasm, “ it should please Heaven to smile on my 
endeavors to restore him to reason, how exquisite 
will be my satisfaction in laboring to maintain 
him !” 

To this plan, it is to be supposed, the governors 
saw more objection than Agnes did; but, though 
they rejected the idea of her being a servant in the 
house, they were not averse to giving her an oppor- 
tunity of making the trial she desired, if it were 
only to alleviate her evident wretchedness; and, 
having consulted the medical attendants belonging 
to the institution, they ordered that Agnes should 
be permitted two hours at a time, morning and 
evening, to see Fitzhenry. And she, who had not 
dared to flatter herself she should obtain so much, 
was too full of emotion to show, otherwise than by 
incoherent expressions and broken sentences, her 
sense of the obligation* 


76 


st Our next care,” observed the president, 11 must 
be, as friends of your poor father, to see what we 
can do for your future support.” “ That, sir, I 
shall provide for myself,” replied Agnes; w I will 
not eat the bread of idleness, as well as of shame 
and affliction, and shall even rejoice in being obliged 
to labor for my support, and that of my child.... 
happy, if, in fulfilling well the duties of a mother, I 
may make some atonement for having violated those 
of a daughter.” 

w But, Miss Fitzhenry,” answered the president, 
u accept at least some assistance from us till you can 
find means of maintaining yourself.” “ Never, 
never !” cried Agnes : “ I thank you for your kind- 
ness, but I will not accept it ; nor do I need it. I 
have already accepted assistance from one kind 
friend, and merely because I should, under similar 
circumstances, have been hurt at having a gift of 
mine refused ; but, allow me to say that from the 
wretchedness into which my guilt has plunged me, 
nothing henceforward but my industry shall relieve 
me.” 

So saying, she curtsied to the gentlemen, and 
hastily withdrew, leaving them all deeply affected 
by her narrative, and her proposed expiatory plan 
of life, and ready to grant her their admiration, 
should she have resolution to fulfil her good inten- 
tions, after the strong impression which the meeting 


77 


with her father in the forest had made on her mind, 
should have been weakened by time and occupation. 

Agnes hastened from the governors’ room to put 
in force the leave she had obtained, and was imme- 
diately conducted to Fitzhenry’s cell. She found 
him with his back to the door, drawing with a 
piece of coal on the wall ; and as he did not observe 
her entrance, she had an opportunity of looking over 
his shoulder, and she saw that he had drawn the 
shape of a coffin, and was then writing on the lid 
the name of Agnes. 

A groan which involuntarily escaped her, made 
him turn round; at sight of her he started, and 
looked wildly as he had, done in the forest; then, 
shaking his head and sighing deeply, he resumed 
his employment, still occasionally looking back at 
Agnes; who, at length overcome by her feelings, 
threw herself on the bed beside him, and burst into 
tears. 

Hearing her sobs, he immediately turned round 
again, and, patting her cheek as he had done on 
their first meeting, said, u Poor thing! poor thing!” 
and, fixing his eyes stedfastly on her face, while 
Agnes turned towards him and pressed his hand to 
her lips, he gazed on her as before with a look of 
anxious curiosity ; then, turning from her, muttered 
to himself, “ She is dead, for all that.” 

g 2 


73 


Soon after, he asked her to take a walk with him ; 
adding in a whisper, w We will go find her grave ;” 
and, taking her under his arm, he led her to the 
garden, smiling on her from time to time, as if it 
gave him pleasure to see her; and sometimes laugh- 
ing, as if at some secret satisfaction which he would 
not communicate. When they had made one turn 
round the garden, he suddenly stopped, and began 
singing 

u Tears such as tender fathers shed,” 
that pathetic song of Handel’s, which he used to 
delight to hear Agnes sing: “ I can’t go on,” he 
observed, looking at Agnes, “ can you ?” as if there 
were in his mind some association between her and 
that song ; and Agnes, with a bursting heart, took 
up the song where he left off. 

Fitzhenry listened with restless agitation; and 
when she had fsnished, he desired her to sing it 
again. “ But say the words first,” he added: and 
Agnes repeated 

“ Tears, such as tender fathers shed. 

Warm from my aged eyes descend. 

For joy, to think, when I am dead, 

My son will have mankind his friend.” 

“ No, no,” cried Fitzhenry, with quickness, “ for 
joy to think, when I am dead, Agnes will have man - 
kind her friend, I used to sing it so; and so did 
she, when I bade her do §o. Oh ! she sung it so 


79 


well! but she can sing it no more now, for she is 
dead ; and we will go look for her grave.” 

Then he ran hastily round the garden, while Ag- 
nes, whom the words of this song, by recalling pain- 
ful recollections, had almost deprived of reason, sat 
down on a bench, nearly insensible, till he again 
came to her, and, taking her hand, said in a hurried 
manner, “ You wili not leave me, will you?” And 
on her answering no, in a very earnest and passion- 
ate manner, he looked delighted; and, saying, “ Poor 
thing!” again gazed on her intently; and again 
Agnes’s hopes that he would in time know her re- 
turned. “ Very pale, very pale!” cried Fitzhenry 
the next moment, stroking her cheek ; a and she 
had such a bloom ! Sing again ; for the love of 
God, sing again:” and in a hoarse, broken voice, 
Agnes complied. “ She sung better than you,” re- 
joined he, when she had done ; “ so sweet, so clear 
it was ! But she is gone !” So saying, he relapsed 
into a total indifference to Agnes and every thing 
around him, and again her new raised hopes van- 
ished. 

The keeper now told her it was time for her to 
depart, and she mournfully arose ; but, first seizing 
her father’s hand, she leaned for a moment her head 
on his arm ; then, bidding God bless him, walked 
to the door with the keeper. But on seeing her 
about to leave him, Fitzhenry ran after her as fast 


80 


as his heavy irons would let him, wildly exclaiming, 
“ You shall not go....you shall not go.” 

Agnes, overjoyed at this evident proof of the 
pleasure her presence gave him, looked at the 
keeper for permission to stay ; but as he told her it 
would be against the rules, she thought it more pru- 
dent to submit; and before Fitzhenry could catch 
hold of her in order to detain her by force, she ran 
through the house, and the grated door was closed 
upon her. 

“And this,” said Agnes to herself, turning round 
to survey the melancholy mansion she had left, 
while mingled sounds of groans, shrieks, shouts, 
laughter, and the clanking of irons, burst upon her 
ears, “ this is the abode of my father ! and provided 
for him by me ! This is the recompense bestowed 
on him by the daughter whom he loved and trust- 
ed, in return for years of unparalleled fondness and* 
indulgence!” 

The idea was too horrible; and Agnes, calling 
up ail the energy of her mind, remembered the use- 
lessness of regret for the past, but thought with 
pleasure on the advantages of amendment for the 
present and the future ; and by the time she reach- 
ed Fanny’s door, her mind had recovered its sad 
composure. 

Her countenance, at her return, was very dif- 
ferent to what it had been at her departure* Hope 


81 


animated her sunk eye, and she seemed full of joy- 
ful though distant expectations : nay, so much was 
she absorbed in pleasing anticipations, that she fee- 
bly returned the caresses of her child, who climbed 
up her knees to express his joy at seeing her ; and 
even while she kissed his ruddy cheek, her eye 
iooked beyond it with the open gaze of absence. 

“ I have seen him again,” she cried, turning to 
Fanny; “ and he almost knew me! He will know 
me entirely, in time ; and next, he will know every 
thing ; and then I shall be happy !” 

Fanny, to whom Agnes had given no clue to en- 
able her to understand this language, was alarmed 
for her intellects, till she explained her plans, and 
her hopes ; which F anny, though she could not 
share in them, was too humane to discourage. 

“ But now,” continued Agnes, “ let us consult on 
my future means of gaining a livelihood ;” and find- 
ing that Fanny besides keeping a day-school, took 
in shawl-work, a considerable shawl manufacture 
being carried on in the town, it was settled that she 
should procure the same employment for Agnes ; 
and that a small back room in Fanny’s little dwell- 
ing should be fitted up for her use. 

In the mean while the governors of the bedlam 
had returned to their respective habitations, with 
feelings towards Agnes very different to those, with 
which they had assembled. But too prudent to 


82 


make even a penitent sinner the subject of praise ia 
their own families, they gave short, evasive answers 
to the enquiries that were made there. 

Mr. Seymour, on the contrary, thought it his duty 
to relieve the generous and affectionate heart of his 
daughter, by a minute detail of what had passed at 
the meeting; but he had no opportunity of doing 
this when he first returned home, as he found there 
a large party assembled to dinner. Caroline, how- 
ever, watched his countenance and manner; and 
seeing on the first an expression of highly-awaken- 
ed feelings, and in the latter a degree of absence 
and aversion to talking, which it always displayed 
whenever his heart had been deeply interested, she 
flattered herself that Agnes was the cause of these 
appearances, and hoped to hear something to her 
advantage. 

During dinner, a lady asked Caroline which of 
her young friends would accompany her to church, 
in the capacity of bride-maid. Caroline started, 
and turned pale at the question; for melancholy 
were the reflections it excited in her mind. 

It had always been an agreement between her 
and Agnes, that whichever of the two was married 
first should have the other for her bride-maid ; and 
the question was repeated before Caroline could 
trust her voice to answer it. “ I shall have no bride- 
maids, but my sisters,” she replied at length with a 


83 


quivering lip: “ I cannot; indeed I wish to have 
no other now.” Then, looking at her father, she 
saw his eyes were filled with tears ; and unable to 
suppress, but wishing* to conceal his emotion, he 
abruptly left the room. 

There is scarcely any human being whose heart 
has not taught him that we are never so compas- 
sionate and benevolent towards others, as when our 
own wishes are completely gratified: we are never so 
humble as then. This was the case with Mr. Sey- 
mour: he was about to marry his eldest daughter 
in a manner even superior to his warmest expecta- 
tions ; and his paternal care, therefore, was amply 
rewarded. But his heart told him that his care and 
affection had not exceeded, perhaps not equalled 
that of Fitzhenry; nor had the promise of his 
daughter’s youth, fair as it was, ever equalled that 
of the unhappy Agnes; yet Caroline was going to 
aggrandize her family, and Agnes had disgraced 
hers. She was happy.... Agnes miserable. He was 
possessor of a large fortune, and all the comforts of 
life; and Fitzhenry was in a mad-house. 

This contrast between their situations was forci- 
bly recalled to his mind by the question addressed 
to Caroline ; and, already softened by the interview 
of the morning, he could not support his feelings, 
but was obliged to hasten to his chamber to vent in 
t£ars and thanksgivings the mingled sensations of 


84 


humility and gratitude. Caroline soon followed 
him; and heard, with emotions as violent, her 
father’s description of Agnes’s narration, and her 
conduct before the governors. 

“ But it is not sufficient,” said she, u that you tell 
me this: you must tell it wherever you hear the 
poor penitent’s name mentioned, and avow the 
change it has made in your sentiments towards her; 
you must be her advocate.”' 

“ Her advocate! What would the world say?” 

“ Just what you wish it to say. Believe me, my 
dear father, the world is in many instances like a 
spoiled child, who treats with contempt the foolish 
parent that indulges his caprices, but behaves with* 
respect to those, who, regardless of his clamors, 
give the law to him, instead of receiving it.” 

“ You speak from the untaught enthusiasm and 
confidence of youth, Caroline; but experience will 
teach you that no one can with impunity run counter 
to the opinions of the world.” 

“ My experience has taught me that already ; but, 
in this case, you do not seem to do the world justice. 
The world would blame you, ''and justly too, if, 
while talking of the unhappy Agnes, you should 
make light of her guilt ; but why not, while you ac- 
knowledge that to be enormous, descant with equal 
justice on the deep sense she entertains of it, and 
on the excellence- of her present intentions? To 


85 


this, what can the world say, but that you are a just 
judge? And even suppose they should think you 
too lenient a one, will not the approbation of your 
own conscience be an ample consolation for such a 
condemnation? Oh! my dear father! were you 
not one of the best, and most unspoilable of men, 
your anxious attention to what the world will say of 
your actions, must long ere this have made you one 
of the worst.” 

“ Enough, enough,” cried Mr. Seymour, wound- 
ed self-love contending in his bosom with parental 
pride, for he had some suspicion that Caroline was 
right, u what would the world say, if it were to 
hear you schooling your father?” 

“ When the world hears me trying to exalt my 
own wisdom by doubting my father’s, I hope it will 
treat me with the severity I shall deserve.” 

Mr. Seymour clasped her to his bosom as she 
said this, and involuntarily exclaimed, “Oh! poor 
Fitzhenry!” “ And poor Agnes too!” retorted 
Caroline, throwing her arms round his neck : “ k 
will be my parting request, when I leave my paternal 
roof, that you will do ail the justice you can to my 
once honored friend.. ..and let the world say what it 
pleases.” w Well, well, I will indulge you, by grant- 
ing your request,” cried Mr. Seymour ; “ or rather, 
I will indulge myself.” And then, contented with 
each other, they returned to the company. 


H 


86 


A few clays after this conversation, Caroline's 
marriage took place, and was celebrated by the 
ringing of bells and other rejoicings. u What are 
the bells ringing for to-day?” said Agnes to Fanny, 
as she was eating her breakfast with more appetite 
than usual. Fanny hesitated ; and then, in a peevish 
tone, replied, that she supposed they rang for Miss 
Caroline Seymour, as she was married that morn- 
ing; adding, “ Suuch a fuss indeed! such prepara- 
tions! One would think no-body was ever married 
before!” 

Yet, spitefully as Fanny spoke this, she had no 
dislike to the amiable Caroline ; her pettishness pro- 
ceeded merely from her love for Agnes, Just such 
preparations, just such rejoicings,, she had hoped to 
see one day for the marriage of her dear young- 
lady; and though Agnes had not perceived it, Fan- 
ny had, for the last two days, shed many a tear of 
regret and mortification, while news of the intended 
wedding reached her ear on every side; and she 
had not courage to tell Agnes what she had heard, 
lest the feelings of Agnes on the occasion should re- 
semble hers, but in a more painful degree. “ Caro- 
line Seymour married!” cried Agnes, rising from 
her unfinished meal; 4C well married, I hope?” 
u Oh yes, very well indeed. ...Mr. Seymour is so 
proud of the connexion!” “ Thank God!” said 
Agnes fervently: “ May she be a? happy as her 


87 


virtues deserve !” and then, with a hasty step, she 
retired to her own apartment. 

It is' certain that Agnes had a mind above the 
meanness of envy, and that she did not repine at the 
happiness of her friend ; yet, while with tears trick- 
ling down her cheek, she faltered out 44 Happy 
Caroline ! Mr. Seymour proud ! well may he be so!” 
her feelings were as bitter as those which envy ex- 
cites. 44 Oh my poor father! I once hoped....” 
added she ; but overcome with the acuteness of re- 
gret and remorse, she threw herself on the bed in 
speechless anguish. 

Then the image of Caroline, as she last saw her, 
weeping for her misfortunes, and administering to 
her wants, recurred to her mind ; and, in a transport 
of affection and gratitude, she took the paper that 
contained the gift from her bosom, kissed the blotted 
scrawl on the back of it, and prayed fervently for 
her happiness. 

44 But surely,” cried she, starting up and running 
into the next room to Fanny, 4t I should write a few 
lines of congratulation to the bride?” Fanny did not 
answer; indeed she could not; for the affectionate 
creature was drowned in tears, which Agnes well 
understood, and was gratified, though pained, to be- 
hold. At length, still more ashamed of her own 
weakness when she saw it reflected in another, 


Agnes gently reproved Fanny, telling her, it seemed 
as if she repined at Miss Seymour’s happiness. 

u No,” replied Fanny, “ I only repine at your 
misery. Dear me, she is a sweet young lady to be 

sure; but no more to be compared to you ” 

“ Hush! Fanny; ’tis I who am now not to be com- 
pared to her; remember, my misery is owing to my 
guilt.” u It is not the less to be repined at on that 
account,” replied Fanny. 

To this remark, unconsciously severe, Agnes with 
a sigh assented ; and, unable to continue the conver- 
sation in this strain, she again asked whether Fanny 
did not think she ought to congratulate the generous 
Caroline. 41 By all means,” replied Fanny i but, 
before she answered, Agnes had determined that it 
would be kinder in her not to damp the joy of 
Caroline, by calling to her mind the image of a 
wretched friend. “ True,” she observed, ct it would 
gratify my feelings to express the love and gratitude 
I bear her, and my self-love would exult in being 
recollected by her with tenderness and regret, even 
in the hour of her bridal splendor ; but the gratifica- 
tion would only be a selfish one, and therefore I will 
reject it.” 

Having formed this laudable resolution, Agnes, 
after trying to compose her agitated spirits by play- 
ing with her child, who was already idolized by the 
faithful Fanny, bent her steps as usual to the cell of 


89 


her father. Unfortunately for Agnes, she had to 
pass the house of Mr. Seymour, and at the door 
she saw the carriages waiting to convey the bride to 
the country seat of her mother-in-law. Agnes hur- 
ried on as fast as her trembling limbs could carry 
her: but, as she cast a hasty glance over the splendid 
liveries, and the crowd gazing on them, she saw 
Mr. Seymour bustling at the door, with all the 
pleased consequence of a happy parent in his coun- 
tenance ; and not daring to analyse her feelings, she 
rushed forward from the mirthful scene, and did 
not stop again till she found herself at the door of 
the bedlam. 

But when there, and when, looking up at its 
grated windows, she contemplated it as the habita- 
tion of her father,. ..so different to that of the father 
of Caroline, and beheld in fancy the woe-w r orn, sal- 
low face of Fitzhenry, so unlike the health}", satisfi- 
ed look of Mr. Seymour... . u I can’t go in, I can’t 
see him to day,” she faintly articulated, overcome 
with a sudden faintness; and, as soon a3 she could 
recover her strength, she returned home ; and, shut- 
ting herself up in her own apartment, spent the rest 
of the day in that mournful and solitary meditation 
that “ maketh the heart better.” 

It would, no doubt, have gladdened the heart of 
the poor mourner to have known, that surrounded 
py joyous and congratulating friends, Caroline sighed 
h 2 


90 


for the absent Agnes, and felt the want of her con- 
gratulations, “ Surely she will write to me !” said 
she mentally; M I am sure she wishes me happy! 
and one of my greatest pangs at leaving my native 
place is, the consciousness that I leave her misera- 
ble” 

The last words that Caroline uttered, as she bade 
adieu to the domestics, were, “ Be sure to send after 
me any note or letter that may come.” But no note 
or letter from Agnes arrived ; and had Caroline 
known the reason, she would have loved her once 
happy friend the more. - 

The next day, earlier than usual, Agnes went in 
quest of her father. She did not absolutely flatter 
herself that he had missed her the day before, still 
she did not think it absolutely impossible that he 
might. She dared not, however, ask the question ; 
but luckily for her, the keeper told her, unasked, 
that Fitzhenry was observed to be restless, and 
looking out of the door of his cell frequently, both 
morning and evening, as if expecting somebody; 
and that, at night, as he was going to bed, he asked 
whether the lady had not been there. 

4t Indeed !” cried Agnes, her eyes sparkling with 
pleasure.. Where is he? Let me see him direct- 
ly.” But, after the first joyful emotion which he 
always showed at seeing her had subsided, she could 


91 


not flatter herself that his symptoms were more 
favorable than before. 

The keeper also informed her that he had been 
thrown into so violent a raving fit, by the agitation 
he felt at parting with her the last time she was 
there, that she must contrive to slip away unper- 
ceived whenever she came: and this visit having 
passed away without -any thing material occurring, 
Agnes contrived to make her escape unseen. 

On her return, she repeated to Fanny several 
times, with a sort of pathetic pleasure, the question 
her father had asked. u He enquired whether the 
lady had not been there!.... think of that, Fanny!” 
■while so incoherent was her language, and so absent 
were her looks, that Fanny again began to fear her 
afflictions had impaired her reason. 

After staying a few days with the new married 
couple, Mr. Seymour returned home; Caroline 
having, before he left her, again desired him to be 
the friend of the penitent Agnes, whenever he heard 
her unpityingly attacked ; and an opportunity soon 
offered of gratifying his daughter’s benevolence, and 
his own. 

Mr. Seymour was drinking tea in a large party, 
when a lady, to whose plain, awkward, uninterest- 
ing daughters, the once beautiful, graceful, and en- 
gaging Agnes had been a powerful rival, said,. with 
no small share of malignity, “ So! fine impudence 


92 


indeed! I hear that good for nothing minx, Fitz* 
henry’s daughter, is come to town: I wonder for 
my part she dares show her face here.. ..but the as- 
surance of those creatures is amazing.” 

“ Aye, it is indeed,” echoed from one lady to 
another. M But this girl must be a hardened wretch 
indeed,” resumed Mrs. Maefiendy, the first speaker ; 
w I suppose her fellow is tired of her, and she will 
be on the town soon ...” 

“In the church-yard rather.,” replied -Mr. Sey- 
mour, whom a feeling of resentment at these vulgar 
expressions of female spite had hitherto kept silent: 
“ Miss Fitzherry has lest all power of charming 
the eye of the libertine, and even the wish ; but she 
is an object whom the compassionate and the hu- 
mane cannot behold or listen, *o, without the strong- 
est emotion.” 

“ No, to be sure,” replied Mrs. Maefiendy brid- 
ling, u the girl had always a plausible tongue of her 
own; and as to her beauty, I never thought that 
was made for lasting. What then you have seen 
her, Mr. Seymour? I wonder you could condescend 
to look at such trash.” 

“ Yes, madam, I have seen, and heard her too: 
and if heart-felt misery, contrition, and true peni- 
tence, may hope to win favor in the sight cf God, 
and expiate past offences, 4 a ministering angel might 
this frail one be, though we lay howling.” 


93 


6< I lie howling, indeed!’’ screamed out Mrs, 
Macfiendy: w Speak for yourself, if you please, 
Mr. Seymour ; for my part, I do not expect when I 
go to another world to keep such company as Miss 
Fitzhenry.” 

u If with the same measure you mete it should be 
meted to you again, madam, I believe there is little 
chance in another world that you and Miss Fitz- 
henry will be visiting acquaintance.” Then be- 
speaking the attention of the company, he gave that 
account of Agnes, her present situation, and her in- 
tentions for the future, which she gave the gover- 
nors ; and all the company, save the outrageously 
virtuous mother and her daughters, heard it with as 
much emotion as Mr. Seymour felt in relating it. 
Exclamations of u Poor unfortunate girl! what a 
pity she should have been guilty !-.,. but, fallen as she 
is, she is still Agnes Fitzhenry,” resounded through 
the room. 

Mrs. Macfiendy could not bear this in silence j 
but, with a cheek pale, nay livid, with malignity, 
and in a voice sharpened by passion, she exclaimed, 
“ Well, for my part.. ..some people may do any 
thing, yet be praised up to the skies ; other people’s 
daughters would not find such mercy. Before she 
went off, it was Miss Fitzhenry this, and Miss 
Fitzhenry that, though other people’s children could 


94 


perhaps do as much, though they were not so fond 
of showing what they could do.” 

“ No,” cried one of the Miss Macfiendy’s, w Miss 
Fitzhenry had courage enough for any thing.” 

“ True, child,” resumed the mother ; u and what 
did it end in? Why, in becoming a..,.,. ..what I do 
not choose to name.” 

“ Fie, madam, fie! cried ?dr. Seymour; “ why 
thus exult over the fallen?” 

“ Oh! then you do allow her to be fallen?” 

u She is fallen indeed, madam,” said Mr. Sey- 
mour; “ but, even in her proudest hour, Miss Fitz- 
henry never expressed herself towards her erring 
neighbors with unchristian severity; but set you an 
example of forbearance, which you would do well to 
follow.” 

u She set rr.c an example!” vociferated Mrs. 
Macfiendy, “ She indeed! a creature! I will not 
stay, nor shall my daughters, to hear such immoral 
talk. But ’tis as I said.. ..some people may do any 
thing... .for, wicked as she is, Miss Fitzhenry is still 
cried up as something extraordinary, and is even 
held up as an example to modest women.” 

So saying, she arose; but Mr. Seymour rose also, 
and said, “ There is no necessity for your leaving 
the company, madam, as I will leave it; for I am 
tired of hearing myself so grossly misrepresented. 
No one abhors more than I do the crime of Miss 


95 


Fitzhenry ; and no one would more strongly object, 
for the sake of other young women, to her being 
again received into general company; but, at the 
same time, I will always be ready to encourage the 
penitent by the voice of just praise ; and I feel de- 
light in reflecting that however the judges of this 
world may be fond of condemning her, she will one 
day appeal from them to a merciful and long, suffer- 
Sng judge.” 

Then, bowing respectfully to all but Mrs* Mac- 
fiendy, he withdrew, and gave her an opportunity 
of remarking, -that Mr. Seymour was mighty warm 
in the creature’s defence. She did not know he was 
so interested about her; hut she always thought him 
a gay man, and she supposed Miss Fitzhenry, as he 
called her, would be glad to take up with any thing 
now. 

This speech, sorry am I to say, was received with 
a general and complaisant smile, though it was 
reckoned unjust; for there are few who have virtue 
and resolution enough to stand forward as cham- 
pions for an absent and calumniated individual, if 
there be any thing ludicrous in the tale against him; 
and the precise, careful, elderly Mr. Seymour, who 
was always shrinking, like a sensitive plant, from 
the touch of censure, accused by implication of be- 
ing a private friend to the youthful Agnes, excited 


96 


a degree of merry malice in the company not un- 
pleasant to their feelings. 

But, in spite of the efforts of calumny, the ac- 
count Mr. Seymour had given of Agnes and her 
penitence became town talk ; and, as it was con- 
firmed by the other governors, every one, except 
the ferociously chaste, was eager to prevent Agnes 
from feeling pecuniary distress, by procuring her 
employment. 

Still she was not supplied with work as fast as she 
executed it ; for, except during the hours which she 
was allowed to spend with her father, she was con- 
stantly employed ; and she even deprived herself of 
her usual quantity of sleep, and was never in bed 
before one, or after four. 

In proportion as her business and profits increas- 
ed, were her spirits elevated; but the more she 
gained, the more saving she became: she would 
scarcely allow herself sufficient food or clothing; 
and, to the astonishment of Fanny, the once gener- 
ous Agnes appeared penurious, and a lover of 
money. “ What does this change mean, my dear 
lady?” said Fanny to her one day. “ I have my 
reasons for it,” replied Agnes coldly ; then changed 
the subject: and Fanny respected her too much to 
urge an explanation. 

But Agnes soon after began to wonder at an 
obvious change in Fanny. At first, when Agnes 


97 


returned from visiting her father, Fanny used to 
examine her countenance ; and she could learn from 
that, without asking a single question, whether 
Fitzhenry seemed to show any new symptoms of 
amendment, or whether his insanity still appeared 
incurable. If the former, Fanny, tenderly pressing 
her hand, would say, “ Thank God !” and prepare 
their. dinner or supper with more alacrity than usual: 
if the latter, Fanny would say nothing; but en- 
deavor, by bringing little Edward to her, or by en- 
gaging her in conversation, to divert the gloom she 
could not remove ; and Agnes, though she took no 
notice of these artless proofs of affection, observed 
and felt them deeply; and as she drew near the 
house, she always anticipated them as one of the 
comforts of her home. 

But, for some days past, Fanny had discontinued 
this mode of welcome, so grateful to the feelings of 
A^nes, and seemed wholly absorbed in her own. 
She was silent, reserved, and evidently oppressed 
with some anxiety which she was studious to con- 
ceal. Once or twice, when Agnes came home 
rather sooner than usual, she found her in tears; 
and when she affectionately asked the reason of 
them, Fanny pleaded mere lowness of spirits as the 
cause. 

But the eye of anxious affection is not easily 
blinded. Agnes was convinced that Fanny’s misery 

i 


98 


had some more important origin ; and, secretly 
fearing that it proceeded from her, she was on the 
watch for something to confirm her suspicions. 

One day, as she passed through the room where 
Fanny kept her school, Agnes observed that the 
number of her scholars was considerably diminish- 
ed; and, when she asked Fanny where the children 
whom she missed were, there was a confusion and 
hesitation in her manner, while she made different 
excuses for their absence, which convinced Agnes 
that she concealed from her some unwelcome truth. 

A very painful suspicion immediately darted 
across her mind, the truth of which was but too 
soon confirmed. A day or two after, while again 
passing through the school-room, she was attracted 
by the beauty of a little girl, who was about eight 
years old; and, smoothing down her curling hair, 
she stooped to kiss her ruddy cheek; but the child, 
uttering a loud scream, sprang from her arms, and, 
sobbing violently, hid her face on Fanny’s lap. 
Agnes, who was very fond of children, was much 
hurt by symptoms of a dislike so violent towards 
her, and urged the child to give a reason for such 
strange conduct: on which the artless girl owned 
that her mother had charged her never to touch or 
go near Miss Fitzhenry, because she was the most 
wicked woman that ever breathed. 


99 


Agnes heard this new consequence of her guilt 
with equal surprise and grief; but, on looking at 
Fanny, though she saw grief in her countenance, 
there was no surprise in it ; and she instantly tokl 
her she was convinced the loss of her scholars was 
occasioned by her having allowed her to reside with 
her. Fanny, bursting into tears, at last confessed 
that her suspicions were just, while to the shudder- 
ing Agnes, she unfolded a series of persecutions 
which she had undergone from her employers, be- 
cause she had declared her resolution of starving, 
rather than drive from her house her friend and 
benefactress. 

Agnes was not long in forming her resolution ; 
and the next morning, without saying a word to 
Fanny on the subject, she went out in search of a 
lodging for herself and child, as gratitude and jus- 
tice forbade her to remain any longer with her per- 
secuted companion. 

But after having in vain tried to procure a lodg- 
ing suitable to the low state of her finances, or rather 
to her saving plan, she hired a little cottage on the 
heath above the town, adjoining to that where she 
had been so hospitably received in the hour of her 
distress; and, having gladdened the hearts of the 
friendly cottager and his wife, by telling them she 
was coming to be their neighbor* she went to break 
the unwelcome tidings to Fanny. 


100 


Passionate and vehement indeed was her distress 
at hearing her young lady, as she still persisted to < 
call her, was going to leave her ; but her expostula- 
tions and tears were vain ; and Agnes, after promis- 
ing to see Fanny every day, took possession that 
very evening of her humble habitation. 

But her intention in removing was frustrated by 
the honest indignation and indiscretion of Fanny. 
She loudly raved against the illiberality which had 
robbed her of the society of all she held dear ; and, 
as she told every one that Agnes left her by her 
own choice and not at her desire, those children 
who had been taken away because Agnes resided 
with her, were not sent back to her on her removal. 
At last, the number of her scholars became so small, 
that she gave up school-keeping, and employed her- 
self in shawl- working only j while her leisure time 
was spent in visiting Agnes, or in inveighing, to 
those who would listen to her, against the cruelty 
that had driven her young lady from her house. 

Fanny used to begin by relating the many obliga- 
tions her mother and she had received from Agnes 
and her father, and always ended with saying, “ Yet 
to this woman, who saved me and mine from a 
work-house, they wanted me to refuse a home when 
she stood in need of one! They need not have 
been afraid of her being too happy ! Such a mind 
as hers can never be happy under the consciousness 


101 


of having been guilty; and could she ever forget 
her crime, one visit to her poor father would make 
her remember it again.” 

Thus did Fanny talk, as I said before, to those 
who would listen to her : and there was one auditor 
who could have listened to her forever on this sub- 
ject, and who thought Fanny looked more lovely 
while expressing her love for her penitent mistress, 
and pleading her cause with a cheek flushed with 
virtuous indignation, and eyes suffused with the 
tears of artless sensibility, than when, attended by 
the then happy Agnes, she gave her hand in the 
bloom of youth and beauty to the man of her heart. 

This auditor was a respectable tradesman who 
lived in Fanny’s neighborhood, to whom her faithful 
attachment to Agnes had for some time endeared 
her; while Fanny, in return, felt grateful to him for 
entering with such warmth into her feelings, and for 
listening so patiently to her complaints ; and it was 
not long before he offered her his hand. 

To so advantageous an offer, and to a man so 
amiable, Fanny could make no objection; especial- 
ly as Agnes advised accepting the proposal. But 
Fanny declared to her lover that she would not 
marry him, unless he would promise that Agnes and 
her child should, whenever they chose, have a Home 
with her. To this condition the lover consented; 
telling Fanny he loved her the better for it; and 
i 9 


102 


Agnes had soon the satisfaction of witnessing the 
# union of this worthy couple. 

But they tried in vain to persuade Agnes to take 
up her residence with them. She preferred living 
by herself. To her, solitude was a luxury; as, 
while the little Edward was playing on the heath 
with the cottager’s children, Agnes delighted to 
brood in uninterrupted silence over the soothing 
hope, the fond idea, that alone stimulated her to ex- 
ertion, and procured her tranquillity. All the ener- 
gies of her mind and body were directed to one 
end ; and while she kept her eye stedfastly fixed on 
the future, the past lost its power to torture, and the 
present had seine portion of enjoyment. 

But were not these soothing reveries sometimes 
disturbed by the pangs of ill requited love? and 
could she, who had loved so fondly as to sacrifice to 
. the indulgence of her passion every thing she held 
most dear, rise superior to the power of tender re- 
collection, and at once tear from her heart the image 
of her fascinating lover? It would be unnatural to 
suppose that Agnes could entirely forget the once 
honored choice of her heart, and the father of her 
child; or that, although experience had convinced 
her of its unworthiness, she did not sometimes con- 
template, with the sick feelings of disappointed ten- 
derness, the idol which her imagination had decked 
in graces all its own. 




103 


But these remembrances were rare. She oftener 
beheld him as he appeared before the tribunal of her 
reason.... a cold, selfish, profligate, hypocritical de- 
ceiver ; as the unfeeling destroyer of her hopes and 
happiness ; and as one who, as she had learned from 
his own lips, when he most invited confidence, was 
the most determined to betray. She saw him also 
as a w r retch so devoid of the common feelings of na- 
ture and humanity, that, though she left her apart- 
ments in London in the dead of night, and in the 
depth of a severe winter, an almost helpless child in 
her arms, and no visible protector near, he had 
never made a single inquiry concerning her fate, or 
that of his offspring. 

At times, the sensations of Agnes bordered on 
phrenzy, when, in this heartless, unnatural wretch, 
she beheld the being for whom she had resigned the 
matchless comforts of her home, and destroyed the 
happiness and reason of her father. At these mo -Jfc 
ments, and these only, she used to rush wildly forth 
in search of company, that she might escape from 
herself : but more frequently she directed her steps 
to the abode of the poor; to those, who, in her 
happier hours, had been supported by her bounty, 
and who now were eager to meet her in her walks, 
to repay .her past benefactions by a “ God bless you, 
lady !” uttered in a tone of respectful pity. * A 


104 


When her return was first known to the objects of 
her benevolence, Agnes soon saw herself surround- 
ed by them ; and was, in her humble apparel and 
dejected state, followed by them with more blessings 
and more heartfelt respect, than in the proudest 
hour of her prosperity. 

41 Thank God!” ejaculated Agnes, as she cast a 
glistening eye on her ragged followers ; 44 there are 
yet those whose eyes mine may meet with confi- 
dence. There are some beings in the world towards 
whom I have done my duty.” But the next min- 
ute she recollected that the guilty flight which made 
her violate the duty she owed her father, at the 
same time removed her from the power of fulfilling 
her duty to the poor; fur it is certain, that our 
duties are so closely linked together, that, as the 
breaking of one pearl from a string of pearls hazards 
the loss of all, so the violation of one duty endangers 
the safety of every other. 

44 Alas !” exclaimed Agnes, as this melancholy 
truth occurred to her, u it is not for me to exult; for 
even in the squalid, meagre countenances of these 
kind and grateful beings, I read evidences of my 
guilt.. ..they looked up to me for aid, and I deserted 
them !” 

In time, however, these acute feelings wore away ; 
and Agnes, by entering again on the offices of be- 
nevolence and humanity towards the distressed, lost 


105 


m a consciousness of present usefulness, the bitter 
sensation of past neglect. 

True, she could no longer feed the hungry or 
clothe the naked, but she could soften the pangs of 
sickness by expressing sympathy in its sufferings. 
She could make the nauseous medicine more wel- 
come, if not more salutary, by administering it her- 
self ; for, though poor, she was still superior to the 
sufferers she attended ; and it was soothing to them 
to see such a lady take so much trouble for those so 
much beneath her.. ..and she could watch the live- 
long night by the bed of the dying, join in the con- 
soling prayer offered by the lips of another, or, in 
her own eloquent and impassioned language, speak 
peace and hope to the departing soul. 

These tender offices, these delicate attentions, so 
dear to the heart of every one, but so particularly 
welcome to the poor from their superiors, as they 
are acknowledgments of relationship between them, 
and confessions that they are of the same species as 
themselves, and heirs of the same hopes, even those 
who bestow money with generous profusion do not 
often pay. But Agnes was never content to give 
relief unaccompanied by attendance: she had re- 
flected deeply on the nature of the human heart, and 
knew that a participating smile, a sympathizing tear, 
a friendly pressure of the hand, the shifting of an un- 
easy pillow, and patient attention to an unconnected 


106 


tale of twice-told symptoms, were, in the esteem of 
the indigent sufferer, of as great value as pecuniary 
assistance. 

Agnes, therefore, in her poverty, had the satisfac- 
tion of knowing that she was as consoling to the 
distressed, if not as useful, as she was in her pros- 
perity; and if there could be a moment when she 
felt die glow of exultation in her breast, it was when 
she left the habitation of indigence or sorrow, fol- 
lowed by the well-earned blessings of its inhabitants. 

Had Agnes been capable of exulting in a con- 
sciousness of being revenged, another source of ex- 
ultation might have been hers, provided she had 
ever deigned to enquire concerning her profligate 
seddeer, whom she wrongfully accused of having 
neglected to make enquiries concerning her and her 
child. Agnes saw, two months after her return 
from London, an account of Clifford’s marriage in 
the paper, and felt some curiosity to know what had 
so long retarded an union which, when she leit town, 
was fixed for the Monday following; and Fanny 
observed an increased degree of gloom and abstrac- 
tion in her appearance. Cut, dismissing this feeling 
from her mind as unworthy of it, from that moment 
she resolved, if possible, to recall Clifford to her 
imagination, as one who, towards her, had been 
guilty not of perfidy and deceit only, but of brutal 
and unnatural neglect* 


107 


In this last accusation, however, as I said before, 
she was unjust. When Clifford awoke the next 
morning after his last interview with Agnes, and 
the fumes of the wine he had drunk the night before 
were entirely dissipated, he recollected, with great 
uneasiness, the insulting manner in which he had 
justified his intended marriage, and the insight into 
the baseness of his character, which his unguarded 
confessions had given to her penetration. 

The idea of having incurred the contempt of Ag- 
nes was insupportable. Yet, when he recollected 
the cold, calm, and dignified manner in which she 
spoke and acted tvhen he bade her adieu, he was 
convinced that he had taught her to despise him ; 
and, knowing Agnes, he -was also certain, that she 
must soon cease to love the man whom she had 
once learned to despise. 

w But I will go to her directly,” exclaimed he to 
himself, ringing his bell violently; u and I will at- 
tribute my infernal folly to drunkenness.” He then 
ordered his servant to call a coach, finding himself 
too languid, from his late intemperance, to walk; 
and was just going to step into it when he saw 
Mrs. Askew, pale and trembling, and heard her, in 
a faltering voice, demand to see him in private for 
a few minutes. 

I shall not attempt to describe his rage and asto- 
nishment when he heard of the elopement of Agnes 


108 


But these feelings were soon followed by those of 
terror for her safety, and that of his child ; and his 
agitation for some moments was so great as to de- 
prive him of the power of considering how he should 
proceed, in order to hear some tidings of the fugi- 
tives, and endeavor to recall them. 

It was evident that Agnes had escaped the night 
before, because a servant, sitting up for a gentleman 
who lodged in the house, was awakened from sleep 
by the noise she made in opening the door; and, 
running into the hall, she saw T the tail of Agnes’s 
gown as she shut it again ; and looking to see who 
was gone out, she saw a lady, who she was almost 
certain was Miss Fitzhenry, running down the 
street with great speed. But to put its being Agnes 
beyond all doubt, she ran up to her room, and find- 
ing the door open, went in, and could see neither 
her nor her child. 

To this narration Clifford listened with some 
calmness; but when Mrs. Askew told him that 
Agnes had taken none of her clothes with her, he 
fell into an agony amounting to phrenzy, and ex- 
claiming, “ Then it must be so, she has destroyed 
both herself and the child!” his senses failed him, 
and he dropped down insensible on the sofa. This 
horrible probability had occurred to Mrs. Askew; 
and she had sent servants different ways all night, 
in order to find her if she were still in existence, 


109 


that she might spare Clifford, if possible, the pain of 
conceiving a suspicion like her own. 

Clifford was not so fortunate as to remain long in 
a state of unconsciousness, but soon recovered to a 
sense of misery and unavailing remorse. At length, 
he recollected that a coach set off that veiy night 
for her native place, from the White-horse cellar, 
and that it was possible that she might have obtain- 
ed a lodging the night before, where she meant to 
stay till the coach was ready to set off the following 
evening. He immediately went to Piccadilly, to 
see whether places for a lady and child had been 
taken, but no such passengers were on the list. lie 
then inquired, whether a lady and child had gone 
from that inn the night before in the coach that went 
within a few miles of the town of........ But, as 

Agnes had reached the inn just as the coach was 
setting off, no one belonging to it, but the coachman, 
knew she was a passenger. 

w Well, I flatter myself,” Said Clifford to Mrs. 
Askew, endeavoring to smile, “ that she will make 
her appearance here at night, if she does not come 
to-day: and I will not stir from this spot till the 
coach sets off, and will even go in it some way, to 
see whether it does not stop to take her up on the 
road.” 

This resolution he punctually put in practice* 
All day Clifford was stationed at a window opposite 

K 


110 


to the inn, or in the book-keeper’s office ; but night 
came, the coach was ready to set off, and still no 
Agnes appeared. However, Clifford, having secur- 
ed a place, got in with the other passengers, and 
went six miles or more before he gave up the hope 
of hearing the coachman ordered to stop in the soft 
voice of Agnes. 

At last, all expectation failed him ; and, complain- 
ing of a violent head- ache, he desired to be set 
down, sprang out of the carriage, and relieved the 
other passengers from a very restless and disagreea- 
ble companion: and Clifford, without a great coat 
and in a violent attack of fever, was wandering on 
the road to London, in hopes of meeting Agnes, 
at the very time when his Victim was on the road 
to her native place, in company with her unhappy 
father. 

By the time Clifford reached London, he was 
bordering on a state of delirium ; but had recollec- 
tion enough. to desire his confidential servant to in- 
form his father of the state he was in, and then take 

the road to and ask at every inn on the road 

whether a lady and child (describing Agnes and 
little Edward) had been there. The servant obey- 
ed ; and the anxious father, who had been informed 
of the cause of his son’s malady, soon received the 
following letter from Wilson, while he was attend- 
ing at his bedside. 


in 


ie My Lord, 

44 Sad news of Miss Fitzhenry and the child; 
and reason to fear they both perished with cold. 
For being told at one of the inns on this road, that 
a young woman and child had been found frozen to 
death last night and carried to the next town to be 
owned : and while I was taking a drap of brandy to 
give me spirits to see the bodies, for a qualm came 
over me, when I thought of what can’t be helped, 
and how pretty, and good-natured, and happy she 
once was, a woman came down with .a silk wrapper 
and shawl that I knew belonged to the poor lady, 
and said the young woman found dead had those 
things on. This was proof positive, my lord... .and 
it turned me sick. Still it is better so, than self- 
murder : so my master had best know it, I think ; 
and I hope your lordship will think so too: I remain 
your lordship’s 

44 Most humble servant to command, 

44 J. WILSON. 

44 P. S. If I gain more particul4E; shall send 
them.” 

Dreadful as the supposed death of Agnes and her 
child appeared to the father of Clifford, he could 
not be sorry that so formidable a rival to his future 
daughter-in-law was no longer to be feared ; and as 
Clifford, in the ravings of his fever, was continually 
talking of Agnes as self-murdered, and the murderer 


1 


of her child, and of himself as the abandoned cause ; 
and as that idea seemed to haunt and terrify his 
imagination, he thought, with his son’s servant, that 
he had better take the first opportunity of telling 
Clifford the truth, melancholy as it was. When, 
therefore, a proper occasion offered, he had done 
so, before he received this second letter from Wil- 
son. 

My Lord, 

“ It was all fudge; Miss Fitzhenry is alive, 
and alive like, at........ She stopped at an inn on the 

road, and parted with her silk coat and, shawl for 
some things she wanted, and a hussey of a chamber- 
maid stole them and went off in the night with 
them, and her little by-blow: but justice overtakes 
us sooner or later. I suppose his honor, my master, 
will be cheery at this ; but, as joy often distracts us 
.33 much as grief, they say, though I never believed 
it, x^ake it you will not tell him this good news 
hand-oft9»^ad....and am 

“ Yoii™jfdship ? s 

“ Most humble to command, 

J. WILSON. 

“ P. S. I have been to and have heard for 

certain Miss F. and h»r child are there.” 

His lordship was even more cautious than Wil- 
son wished him to be ; for he resolved not to com- 
municate the glad tidings to Clifford cautiously or 


113 


incautiously, as he thought there would be no chance 
of his son’s fulfilling his engagements with Miss 
Sandford, if he knew Agnes was living ; especially, 
as her flight and her supposed death had proved to 
Clifford ho\y necessary she was to his happiness. 
Nay, his lordship went still further; and he re- 
solved Clifford should never know, if he could pos- 
sibly help it, that the report of her death was false. 

How to effect this was the difficulty; but wisely 
conceiving that Wilson was not inaccessible to a 
bribe, he offered him so much a year, on condition 
of his suffering his master to remain convinced of 
the truth of the story that Agnes and her child had 
perished in the snow, and of intercepting all letters 
that he fancied came from Agnes; telling him at 
the same time, that if he ever found he had vio- 
lated the conditions, the annuity should immediately 
cease. 

To this Wilson consented : and, when Clifford 
recovered, he made his compliance with the terms 
more easy, by desiring Wilson, and'the friends to 
whom his connexion with Agnes had been known, 
never to mention her name in his presence again, if 
they valued his health and reason, and as the safety 
of both depended on his forgetting a woman of 
whom he had never felt the value sufficiently till he 
had lost her forever, 

k 2 


v 


114 


Soon after, he married; and the disagreeable 
qualities of his wife made him recollect with more 
painful regret, the charms and virtues of Agnes; the 
consequence was, that he plunged deeper than ever 
into dissipation, and had recourse to intoxication in 
order to banish care and disagreeable recollections ; 
and, while year after year passed away in fruitless 
expectation of a child to inherit the estate and the 
long disputed title, he remembered, with agonizing 
regrets, the beauty of his lost Edward ; and reflect- 
ed that, by refusing to perform his promises to the 
injured Agnes, he had deprived himself of the heir 
he so much coveted, and of a wife who would have 
added dignity to the title she bore, and been the de- 
light and ornament of his family. 

Such were the miserable feelings^ of Clifford..., 
such the corroding cares that robbed his mind of its 
energy, and his body of health and vigor. Though 
courted, caressed, flattered, and surrounded by af- 
fluence and splendor, he was disappointed and self- 
cdndemned. And, while Agnes, for the first time 
condemning him unjustly, attributed his silence and 
neglect of her and her offspring to a degree of indif- 
ference and hard-heartedness which human nature 
shudders at, Clifford was feeling all the horrors of 
remorse, without the consolations of repentance. 

I have before observed that one idea engrossed 
the mind and prompted the exertions of Agnes ; and 

/ 


i 


115 


this was, the probable restoration of her father to 
reason. u Could I but once more hear him call me 
by my name, and bless me with his forgiveness, I 
should die in peace ; and something within tells me 
my hopes will not be vain: and who knows but we 
may pass a contented, if not a happy life together, 
yet? So toil on, toil on, Agnes, and expect the 
fruit of thy labors.” 

These words she was in the habit of repeating 
not only to Fanny, and her next door neighbors, 
(whom she had acquainted with her story,) but to 
herself as she sat at work or traversed the heath. 
Even in the dead of night she would start from a 
troubled sleep, and repeating these words, they 
would operate as a charm on her disturbed mind ; 
and as she spoke the last sentence, she would fall 
into a quiet slumber, from which she awoke the 
next morning at day-break to pursue with increased 
alacrity the labors of the day. 

Meanwhile Agnes and her exemplary industry 
continued to engage the attention and admiration of 
the candid and liberal in the town of. 

Mr. Seymour, who did not venture to inquire 
concerning her of Fanny while she lived at her 
house, now often called there to ask news of Agnes 
and her employments; and his curiosity was excited 
to know to what purpose she intended to deyote the 


116 


money earned with so much labor and hoarded with 
so much parsimonious care. 

But Fanny was as ignorant on this subject as 
himself, and the only new information she could 
give him was, that Agnes had begun to employ her- 
self in fancy-works, in order to increase her gains ; 
and that it was her intention soon to send little Ed- 
ward (then four years old) to town, to offer artificial 
flowers, painted needle-books, work-bags, et cetera, 
at the doors of the opulent and humane. 

Nor was it long before this design was put in 
execution; and Mr. Seymour had the satisfaction of 
btiying the first time all the lovely boy’s stores him- 
self, for presents to his daughters. The little mer- 
chant returned to his anxious mother, bounding 
with delight, not at the good success of his first ven- 
ture, for its importance he did not understand, but 
at the kindness of Mr. Seymour, who had met him 
on the road, conducted him to his house, helped his 
daughters to load his pockets with cakes, et cetera, 
and put in his basket in exchange for his merchan - 
dize, tongue, chicken, et cetera, to carry home to 
his mother. 

Agnes heard the child’s narration with more 
pleasure than she had for some time experienced. 
“ They do not despise me, then,” said she, “ they 
even respect me too much to offer me pecuniary 


« 


117 


Aid, or presents of any kind but in a way that cannot 
wound my feelings.” 

But this pleasure was almost immediately check- 
ed by the recollection that he whose wounded spirit 
would have been soothed by seeing her once more 
an object of delicate attention and respect, and for 
whose sake alone she could now ever be capable of 
enjoying them, was still unconscious of her claims 
to it, and knew not they were so generally acknow- 
ledged. In the words of Jane de Montfort she could 
have said, 

“ He, to whose ear my praise most welcome was, 

Hears it no more !” 

“ But I will still hope on,” Agnes used to exclaim 
as these thoughts occurred to her; and again her 
countenance assumed the wild expression of a dis- 
satisfied, but still expecting spirit. 

Three years had now elapsed since Agnes first 
returned to her native place. u The next year,” 
said Agnes to Fannj r , with unusual animation, 
“ cannot fail of bringing forth good to me. You 
know, that according to the rules of the new bedlam, 
a patient is to remain five years in the house : at 
the end of that time, if not cured, he is to be rer 
moved to the apartments appropriated to incurables, 
and kept there for life, his friends paying a certain 
annuity for his maintenance ; or he is, on their ap- 
plication, to be returned to their care....” 4 And 


/ 


118 


what then?” said Fanny, wondering at the unusual 
joy that animated Agnes’s countenance. “ Why 
then,” replied she, u as my father’s time for being 
confined expires at the end of the next year, he will 
either be cured by that time, or he will be given up 
to my care ; and then, who knows what the conse- 
quences may be 1” u What indeed !” returned Fan- 
ny, who foresaw great personal fatigue and anxiety, 
if not danger, to Agnes, in such a plan, and was 
going to express her fears and objections ; but Ag- 
nes, in a manner overpoweringly severe, desired her 
to be silent, and angrily withdrew. 

Soon after, Agnes received a proof of being still 
dear to her friend Caroline ; which gave her a de- 
gree of satisfaction amounting even to joy. 

Mr. Seymour, in a letter to his daughter, had 
given her an account of all the proceedings of Agnes, 
and expressed his surprise at the eagerness with 
which she labored to gain money, merely for the 
sake of hoarding it, as she had then only herself and 
child to maintain; and it was certain her father 
would always be allowed to remain, free of all ex- 
penses, an inhabitant of an asylum which owed its 
erection chiefly to his benevolent exertions. 

But Caroline, to whom the mind of Agnes was 
well known, and who had often contemplated with 
surprise and admiration her boldness in projecting, 
her promptness in deciding, and her ability in 

\ 


119 


executing the projects she had formed; and above 
all, that sanguine temper which led her to believe 
probable what others only conceived to be possible., 
found a reason immediately for the passion of 
hoarding, which seemed to have taken possession of 
her friend; and following the instant impulse of 
friendship and compassion, she sent Agnes the fol- 
lowing letter, in which was inclosed a bank note to 
a considerable amount. 

“ I have divined your secret, my dear Agnes. I 
know why you are so anxious to hoard what you 
gain with such exemplary industry. In another 
year your father will have been the allotted time 
under the care of the medical attendants in your 
part of the world ; and you are hoarding that you 
may be able, when that time comes, to procure for 
him elsewhere the best possible advice and assist- 
ance. Yes, yes, I know I am right: therefore, lest 
your own exertions should not, in the space of a 
twelvemonth, be crowned with sufficient success, I 
conjure you, by our long friendship, to appropriate 
the inclosed to the purpose in question ; and should 
the scheme which I impute to you be merely the 
creature of my brain, as it is a good scheme, employ 
the money in executing it. 

w To silence all your scruples, I assure you that 
my gift is sanctioned by my husband and my father, 
who "join with me in approbation of your conduct, 


120 


and in the most earnest wishes that you may receive 
the reward of it in the entire restoration of your af- 
flicted parent. Already have the candid and en- 
lightened paid you their tribute of recovered esteem. 

It is the along of the present day, if I may be 
allowed this vulgar but forcible expression, to in- 
veigh bitterly against society for excluding from its 
circle, with unrelenting rigor, the woman who has 
once transgressed the salutary laws of chastity ; and 
some brilliant and persuasive, but, in my opinion, 
mistaken writers, of both sexes, have endeavored to 
prove that many an amiable woman has been for- 
ever lost to virtue and the world, and become the 
victim of prostitution, merely because her first fault 
-was treated with ill-judging and criminal severity. 

“ This assertion appears to me to be fraught with 
mischief; as it is calculated to deter the victim of 
reduction from penitence and amendment, by telling 
her that she would employ them in her favor in 
vain. And it is surely as false as it is dangerous. 
I know many instances, and it is fair to conclude 
that the experience of others is similar to mine, of 
women restored by perseverance in a life of expiato- 
ry amendment, to that rank in society which they 
had forfeited by one false step, while their fault has 
been forgotten in their exemplary conduct as wives 
and mothers. 


121 


But it is net to be expected that society should 
open its arms to receive its prodigal children till 
they have undergone a long and painful probation..., 
till they have practised the virtues of self-denial, 
patience, fortitude, and industry. And she, whose 
penitence is not the mere result of wounded pride 
and caprice, will be capable 6f exerting all these vir- 
tues, in order to regain some portion of the esteem 
she has lost. What will difficulties and mortifica- 
tions be to her? Keeping her eye steadily fixed on 
the end she has in view, she will bound lightly over 
them. alii nor will she seek the smiles of the world, 
till, instead of receiving them as a favor, she can 
demand them as a right. 

“ Agnes, my dear Agnes, do you not know the 
original of the above picture? You, by a life of 
self-denial, patience, fortitude, and industry, have 
endeavored to atone for the crime you have com - 
mitted against society ; and I hear her voice saying, 
4 Thy. sins are forgiven thee!’ and ill befall the 
hand that would uplift the sacred pall which peni- 
tence and amendment have thrown over departed 
guilt!” 

Such was the letter of Caroline : a letter intended 
to speak peace and hope to the heart of Agnes ; to 
reconcile the offender to herself, and light up her 
dim eye with the beams of self-approbation. Thus 
did she try to console her guilty and unhappy friend 


L 


122 


in the hour of her adversity and degradation. But 
Caroline had given a still greater proof of the sin- 
cerity of her friendship: she had never wounded 
the feelings, or endeavored to mortify the self-love 
of Agnes in the hour of her prosperity and ac- 
knowledged superiority; she had seen her attrac- 
tions, and heard her praises, without envy ; nor 
ever with seeming kindness, but real malignity, re- 
lated to her in the accents of pretended wonder and 
indignation, the censures she had incurred or the 
ridicule she had excited ; but in every instance she 
had proved her friendship : a memorable exception 
to what are sarcastically termed the friendships of 
women. 

“ Yes.. ..she has indeed divined my secret^” said 
Agnes when she had perused the letter, while tears 
of tenderness trickled down her cheeks, 41 and she 
deserves to assist me in procuring means for my poor 
father’s recovery.. ..an indulgence which I should be 
jealous of granting to any one else, except you, Fan- 
ny,” she added, seeing on Fanny’s countenance an 
expression of jealousy of this richer friend ; “ and 
on the strength of this noble present,” looking with 
a smile at her darned and pieced, though neat ap- 
parel, “ I will treat myself with a new gown.” 
44 Not before it was wanted,” said Fanny peevishly. 
u Nay,” replied Agnes with a forced smile, w surely 
I am well dressed enough for a runaway daughter. 


123 


My father loved to see me fine,” as poor Clarissa 
says, lt and had I never left him, I should not have 
been forced to wear such a gown as this ; but, Fan- 
ny, let me but see him once more capable of know- 
ing me, and loving me, if it be possible for him to 
forgive me,” added she in a faltering voice, u and I 
will then, if he wishes it, be fine again, though 1 
work all night to make myself so.” 

“ My dear, dear lady,” said Fanny sorrowfully, 
K I am sure I did not mean any thing by what I 
said ; but you have such a way with you, and talk 
so sadly! Yet, I can’t bear, indeed I can’t, to see 
such a lady in a gown not good enough for me ; and 
then to see my young master no better dressed than 
the cottager’s boys next door; and then to hear 
them call Master Edward little Fitzhenry, as if he 
was not their betters: I can’t bear it.. ..it does not 
signify talking, I can’t bear to think of it.” 

“ How, then,” answered Agnes in a solemn tone, 
and grasping her hand as she spoke, “ how can I 
bear to think of the guilt which has thus reduced so 
low both me and my child? Oh! would to God my 
boy could exchange situations with the children 
whom 'you think his inferiors! I have given him 
life, indeed, but not one legal claim to what is 
necessary to the support of life, except the scanty 
pittance I might, by a public avowal of my shame, 
wring from his father.” 


IM 


a 1 would beg my bread with him through the 
streets before you should do that !” hastily exclaim- 
ed Fanny, w and for the love of God, say no more 
on this subject: he is my child, as well as yours,” 
she continued, snatching little Edward to her bosom, 
who was contentedly playing with his top at the 
door; and Agnes, in contemplating the blooming 
graces of the boy, forgot he was an object of com- 
passion. 

The next year passed away as the former had 
done ; and at the end of it, Fitzhenry being pro- 
nounced incurable, but perfectly quiet and harmless, 
Agnes desired, in spite of the advice and entreaties 
of the governors, that he might be delivered up to 
her, that she might put him under the care of Dr. 
W 

Luckily for Agnes, the assignees of her father re- 
covered a debt of a hundred pounds which had long 
been due to him ; and this sum they had great plea- 
sure in paying Agnes, in order to further the success 
of her last hope. 

On the day fixed for Fitzhenry’s release, Agnes 
purchased a complete suit of clothes for him, such 
as he used to wear in former days, and dressed her- 
self in a manner suited to her birth, rather than her 
situation ; then set out in a post-chaise, attended by 
the friendly cottager, as it was judged imprudent 
for her to travel with her father alone, to take up 


125 


Fitzhenry at the bedlam, while Fanny was crying 
with joy to see her dear lady looking like herself 
again, and travelling like a gentlewoman. 

But the poor, whom gratitude and affection made 
constantly observant of the actions of Agnes, were 
full of consternation, when some of them heard, and 
communicated to others, that a post-chaise was* 
standing at Miss Fitzhenry’s door. “ Oh dear! she 
is going to leave us again ; what shall we do without 
her?” was the general exclamation; and when Ag- 
nes came out to enter her chaise, she found it sur- 
rounded by her humble friends, lamenting and in- 
quiring, though with cautious respect, whether she 
ever meant to come back again. w Fanny will tell 
you every thing,” said Agnes, overcome with grate- 
ful emotion at observing the interest she excited. 
Unable to say more, she waved her hand as a token 
of farewell to them, and the chaise drove off. 

u Is Miss Fitzhenry grown rich again?” was the 
general question addressed to Fanny; and I am sure 
it was a disinterested one, and that, at the moment, 
they asked it without a view to their profiting by 
her change of situation, and merely as anxious for 
her welfare; and when Fanny told them whither 
and wherefore Agnes was gone, could prayers, good 
wishes, and blessings, have secured success to the 
hopes of Agnes, her father, even as soon as she 
stopped at the gate of the bedlam, would have 

L 2 


126 


recognized and received her with open* arms. But 
when she arrived, she found Fitzhenry as irrational 
as ever, though delighted to hear he was going to 
take a ride with “ the lady” as he always called 
Agnes ; and she had the pleasure of seeing him seat 
himself beside her with a look of uncommon satis- 
faction. Nothing worth relating happened on the 
road. Fitzhenry was very tractable, except at night, 
when the cottager, who slept in the same room with 
him, found it difficult to make him keep in bed, and 
was sometimes forced to call Agnes to his assist- 
ance : at sight of her he always became quiet, and 
obeyed her implicitly. 

The skilful and celebrated man to whom she ap- 
plied, received her with sympathizing kindness, and 
heard her story with a degree of interest and sensi- 
bility peculiarly grateful to the afflicted heart. Ag- 
nes related with praise-worthy ingenousness the 
whole of her sad history, judging it necessary that 
the doctor should know the cause of the malady for 
which he was to prescribe. 

It was peculiarly the faculty of Agnes to interest 
in her welfare those with whom she conversed ; and 
the doctor scon experienced a more than ordinary 
earnestness to cure a patient so interesting from his 
misfortunes, and recommended by so interesting a 
daughter. “ Six months,” said he, u will be a suf- 
ficient time of trial; and iir the mean while you 


I2T 


shall reside in a lodging near us.” Fitzhenry then 
became an inmate of the doctor’s house: Agnes 
took possession of apartments in the neighborhood ; 
and the cottager returned to 

The ensuing six months were passed by Agnes 
in the soul-sickening feeling of hope deferred : and, 
while the air of the place agreed so well with her 
father that he became fat and healthy in his appear- 
ance, anxiety preyed on her delicate frame, and 
made the doctor fear that when he should be forced 
to pronounce his patient beyond his power to cure, 
she would sink under the blow ; unless the hope of 
being still serviceable to her father should support 
her under its pressure. He resolved, therefore, to 
inform her, in as judicious and cautious a manner 
as possible, that he saw no prospect of curing the 
thoroughly shattered intellect of Fitzhenry. 

“ 1 can do nothing for your father,” said He to 
Agnes, (when he had been under his care six 
months,) laying great stress on the word I; (Agnes, 
with a face of horror, started from her seat, and 
laid her hand on his arm ;) “ but you can do a great 
deal.” 

“ Can I ? can I ?” exclaimed Agnes, sobbing con- 
vulsively. “ Blessed hearing! But the means.... 
the means?” 

“ It is very certain,” he replied, u that he expe- 
riences great delight when he sees you, and sees you 


128 


too employed in his service; and when he lives 
with you, and sees you again where he has been ac- 
customed to see you ” 

44 You advise his living with me then?” interrupt- 
ed Agnes with eagerness. 

44 I do, most strenuously,” replied the doctor. 

44 Blessings on you for those words:” answered 
Agnes: u they said you w T ould oppose it! You are 
a wise and a kind-hearted man!” 

44 My dear child,” rejoined the doctor, 44 when 
an evil can’t be cured, it should at least be allevia- 
ted.” 

44 You think it can’t be cured, then?” again inter- 
rupted Agnes. 

44 Not absolutely so : I know not what a course 
of medicine, and living with you as much in your 
old way as possible, may do for him. Let him re- 
sume his usual habits, his usual walks ; live as near 
your former habitation as you possibly can ; let him 
hear his favorite songs, and be as much with him as 
you can contrive to be ; and if you should not suc- 
ceed in making him rational again, you will at least 
make him happy.” 

44 Happy! I make him happy, now?” exclaimed 
Agnes, pacing the room in an agony : 44 1 made him 
happy once! but now! 

44 You must hire some one to sleep in the room 
with him,” resumed the doctor. 


129 


u No, no!” cried Agnes impatiently, u no one 
shall wait upon him but myself; I will attend him 
day and night.” 

“ And should your strength be worn out by such 
incessant watching, who would take care of him 
then? Remember, you are but mortal.” Agnes 
shook her head, and was silent. 44 Besides, the 
strength of a man may sometimes be necessary, and 
for his sake as well as yours, I must insist on being 
obeyed.” 

<c You shall be obeyed,” said Agnes mournfully. 

Then now,” rejoined he, “ let me give you my 
advice relative to diet, medicine, and management.” 
This he did in detail, as he found Agnes had a 
mind capacious enough to understand his system; 
and promising to answer her letters immediately, 
whenever she wrote to him for advice, he took an 
affectionate farewell of her; and Agne3 and her 
father, accompanied by a man whom the doctor had 

procured for the purpose, set off for... 

Fanny was waiting at the cottage with little Ed- 
ward to receive them ; but the dejected countenance 
of Agnes precluded all necessity of asking concern- 
ing the state of Fitzhenry. Scarcely could the ca- 
resses and joy her child expressed at seeing her call 
a smile to her lips ; and, as she pressed him to her 
bosom, tears of bitter disappointment mingled with 
those of tenderness. 


130 


In a day or two after, Agnes, in cdmpliance with 
the doctor’s desire, hired a small tenement very near 
the house in which they formerly lived; and in the 
garden of which, as it was then empty, they obtain- 
ed leave to walk. She also procured a person to 
sleep in the room with her father instead of the man 
who came with them ; and he carried back a letter 
from her to the doctor, informing him that she had 
arranged every thing according to his directions. 

It was a most painfully pleasing sight to behold 
the attention of Agnes to Fitzhenry. She knew' it 
was not in her power to repair the enormous injury 
she had done him, and that all she could now do, 
was but a poor amends ; still it was affecting to see 
how anxiously she watched his steps whenever he 
chose to wander alone from home, and what pains 
she took to make him neat in his appearance, and 
cleanly in his person. Her child and herself were 
clothed in coarse apparel, but she bought for her 
father every thing of the best materials; and, al- 
tered as he was, Fitzhenry still looked like a gen- 
tleman. 

Sometimes he seemed in every respect so like 
himself, that Agnes, hurried away by her imagina- 
tion, would, after gazing -on him for some minutes, 
start from her seat, seize his hand, and, breathless 
with hope, address him as if he were a rational be- 
ing ; when a laugh of vacancy, or a speech full of 


131 


the inconsistency of phrenzy, would send her back 
to her chair again, with a pulse quickened and a 
cheek flushed with the fever of disappointed ex- 
pectation. 

However, he certainly was pleased with her at- 
tentions; but, alas! he knew not who was the be- 
stower of them: he knew not the child whose in- 
gratitude or whose death he still lamented in his 
ravings in the dead of night, was returned to succor, 
to sooth him, and to devote herself entirely to his 
service* He heard her, but he knew her not; he 
saw her, but in her he was not certain he beheld his 
child: and this was the pang that preyed on the 
cheek and withered frame of Agnes : but she still 
persisted to hope, and patiently endured the pain of 
to-day, expecting the joy of to-morrow; nor did 
her hopes always appear ill founded. 

The first day that Agne& led him to the garden 
once his own, he ran through every walk with eager 
delight ; but he seemed surprised and angry to see 
the long grass growing in the walks, and the few 
flowers that remained choaked up with weeds, and 
began to pluck up the weeds with hasty violence. 

“ It is time to go home,” said Agnes to him just 
as the day began to close in ; and Fitzhenry imme- 
diately walked to the door which led into the house, 
and, finding ic locked, looked surprised: then, turn- 
ing to Agnes, he asked her if she had not the key 


152 

in her pocket; and on her telling him that was not 
his home, he quitted the house evidently with great 
distress and reluctance, and was continually looking 
back at it, as if he did not know how to believe 
her. 

On this little circumstance poor Agnes lay rumi- 
nating the whole night after, with joyful expectation ; 
and she repaired to the garden at day break, with a 
gardener whom she hired, to make the walks look 
as much as possible as they formerly did. But they 
had omitted to iie up some straggling flowers-; and 
when Agnes, Fanny, and the cottager, accompanied 
Fitzhenry thither the next evening, he, though he 
seemed conscious of the improvement that had 
taken place, was disturbed at seeing some gilli- 
flowers trailing along the ground; and suddenly 
turning to Agnes, he said, w Why do you not bind 
up these?” 

To do these little offices in the garden, and keep 
the parterre in order, was formerly Agnes’s employ- 
ment. What delight, then, must these words of 
Fitzhenry, so evidently the result of an association 
in his mind between her and his daughter, have ex- 
cited in Agnes! With a trembling hand and a 
glowing' cheek, she obeyed ; and Fitzhenry saw her, 
with manifest satisfaction, tie up every straggling 
flower in the garden, while he eagerly followed her, 
and bent attentively over her* 


133 


At last, when she had gone the whole round of 
flower-beds, he exclaimed, w Good girl! good girl!” 
and, putting his arm round her waist, suddenly kis- 
sed her cheek. 

Surprise, joy, and emotion difficult to bs defined, 
overcame the irritable frame of Agnes, and she fell 
senseless to the ground. But the care of Fanny 
soon recovered her again; and the first question she 
asked was, how her father (whom she saw in great 
agitation running round the garden) behaved when 
he saw her fall. 

44 He raised you up,” replied Fanny, 44 and seem 
ed so distressed ! he would hold the salts to your 
nose himself, and would scarcely suffer me to do any 
thing for you; but, hearing you mutter 4 Father! 
dear father!’ as you began to come to yourself, he 
changed color, and immediately began to run round 
the garden, as you now see him.” 

44 Say no more, say no more, my dear friend,” 
cried Agnes; 44 it is enough. I am happy, quite 
happy; it is clear that he knew me; and I have 
again received a father’s embrace : then his anxiety 
too when I was ill.... Oh! there is no doubt now 
that he will be quite himself in time.” 

44 Perhaps he may,” replied Fanny; 44 but.. 

44 But! and perhaps!” cried Agnes pettishly; 44 1 
tell you he will, he certainly will recover; and those 
are not my friends who doubt it.” So saying, she 

M 


134 


Jan hastily forward to meet Fitzhenry, who was 
joyfully hastening towards her, leaving Fanny griev- 
ed and astonished at her petulance ; but few are the 
tempers proof against continual anxiety and the 
souring influence of still renewed and still disap- 
pointed hope: and even Agnes, the once gentle 
Agnes, if contradicted on this subject, became angry 
and unjust. 

But she was never conscious of having given pain 
to the feelings of another, without bitter regret and 
an earnest desire of healing the wound she had 
made; and when, leaning on Fitzhenry’s arm, she 
returned towards Fanny, and saw her in tears, she 
felt a pang severer than she had inflicted, and said 
every thing that affection and gratitude could dic- 
tate, to restore her to tranquillity again. Her agi- 
tation alarmed Fitzhenry; and, exclaiming u Poor 
thing!” he held the smelling-bottle, almost by. force, 
to her nose, and seemed terrified lest she was going 
to faint again. 

a You see, you see!” said Agnes triumphantly to 
Fanny: and Fanny, made cautious by experience, 
declared her conviction that her young lady must 
know more of these matters than she did. 

But month after month elapsed, and no circum- 
stances, of a similar nature occurred to give new 
strength to the hopes of Agnes ; however, she had 
the pleasure to see that Fitzhenry not only seemed 


135 


attached to her, but to be pleased with little Ed- 
ward. 

She had indeed taken pains to teach him to en- 
deavor to amuse her father ; but sometimes she had 
the mortification of hearing, when fits of loud laugh- 
ter from the child reached her ear, “ Edward was 
only laughing at grandpapa’s odd faces and actions, 
mamma,” and, having at last taught him it was 
wicked to laugh at such things, because his grand- 
father was not well when he distorted his face, her 
heart was nearly as much wrung by the pity he ex- 
pressed ; for whenever these occasional slight fits of 
phrenzy attacked Fitzhenry, little Edward would 
exclaim, “ Poor grandpapa! he is not well now ; I 
wish we could make him well, mamma!” But, on 
the whole, she had reason to be tolerably cheerful. 

Every evening, when the weather was fine, Ag- 
nes, holding her father’s arm, was seen taking their 
usual walk, her little boy gamboling before them; 
and never, in their most prosperous hours, were 
they met with curtsies more low, or bow's more re- 
spectful, than on these occasions; and many a one- 
grasped with affectionate eagerness the meagre hand 
of Fitzhenry, and the feverish hand of Agnes ; for 
even the most rigid hearts were softened in favor of 
Agnes, when they beheld the ravages grief had 
made in her form, and gazed on her countenance, 
which spoke in forcible language the sadness, yet 


136 


resignation of her mind. She might, if she had 
chosen* it, have been received at many houses where 
she had formerly been intimate ; but she declined it, 
as visiting would have interfered with the necessary 
labors of the day, with her constant attention to her 
father, and with the education of her child. ' u But 
when my father recovers,” said she to Fanny, 44 as 
he will be pleased to find I am not deemed wholly 
unworthy of notice, I shall have great satisfaction in 
visiting with him.” 

To be brief; Another year elapsed, and Agnes 
still hoped j and Fitzhenry continued the same to 
every eye but hers: she every day fancied his 
symptoms of returning reason increased, and no one 
of her friends dared to contradict her. But in 
order, if possible, to accelerate his recovery, she had 
resolved to carry him to London to receive the best 
advice the metropolis afforded, when Fitzhenry was 
attacked by an acute complaint which confined him 
to his bed. This event, instead of alarming Agnes, 
redoubled her hopes. She insisted that it was the 
crisis of his disorder, and expected health and rea- 
son would return together. Not for one moment, 
therefore, would she leave his bedside, and she 
would allow herself neither food nor rest, while 
with earnest attention she gazed on the fast sinking 
eyes of Fitzhenry, eager to catch in them an ex- 
pression of returning recognition.' 


137 


One day, after he had been sleeping some time, 
and she, as usual, was attentively watching by him, 
Fitzhenry slowly and gradually awoke : and, at last, 
raising himself on his elbow, looked round him with 
.an expression of surprise, and, seeing Agnes, ex- 
claimed, u My child! are you there? Gracious God! 
is this possible?” 

Let those who have for years been pining away 
life in fruitless expectation, and who see themselves 
at last possessed of the long desired blessing, figure 
to themselves the rapture of Agnes. “ Pie knows 
me ! He is himself again !” burst from her quiver- 
ing lips, unconscious that it was too probable re- 
stored reason was here the forerunner of dissolu- 
tion. 

“ On ! my father !” she cried, falling on her knees, 
but not daring to look up at him, “ Oh ! my father, 
forgive me if possible : I have been guilty, but I am 
penitent!” 

* Fitzhenry, as much affected as Agnes, faltered 
out, “ Thou art restored to me, and God knows 
how heartily I forgive thee !” Then raising her to 
his arms, Agnes, happy in the fulfilment of her ut- 
most wishes, felt herself once more pressed to the 
bosom of the most affectionate of fathers. 

u But surely you are not now come back ?” asked 
Fitzhenry. “ I have seen you before, and very 
lately.” “ Seen me! Oh, yes!” replied Agnes with 

M 2 


138 


passionate rapidity ; “ for these last five years I 
have*seen you daily; and for the last two years you 
have lived with me, and I have worked to maintain 
you!” u Indeed!” answered Fitzhenry: “ but how 
pale and thin you are! You have worked too much: 
had you no friends, my child ?” 

“ Oh, yes ! and guilty as I have been, they pity, 
nay, they respect me, and we may yet be happy, as 
Heaven restores you to my prayers! True, I have 
suffered much ; but this blessed moment repays me : 
this is the only moment of true enjoyment I have 
known since I left my home and you !” 

Agnes was thus pouring out the hasty effusions 
of her joy, unconscious that Fitzhenry, overcome 
with affection, emotion, and, perhaps, sorrowful 
recollections, was struggling in vain for utterance. 
At last, “ For so many years... .and I knew you 
not! worked for me.... attended me! Bless, bless 
her, Heaven!” he faintly articulated ; and, worn out 
with illness, and choaked with contending emotion#, 
he fell back on his pillow and expired ! 

Thus, that blessing, the hope of obtaining which 
alone gave Agnes courage to endure contumely, 
poverty, fatigue, and sorrow, was for one moment 
her own, and then snatched from her for ever! 

No wonder, then, that when convinced her father 
was really dead, she fell into a state of stupefaction, 
from which she never recovered ; and, at the same 


139 


time, were borne to the same grave, the father and 
daughter. 

The day of their funeral was indeed a melancholy 
one: they were attended to the grave by a numer- 
ous procession of respectable inhabitants of both 
sexes ; while the afflicted and lamenting poor follow- 
ed mournfully at a distance. Even those who had 
distinguished themselves by their violence against 
Agnes at her return, dropped a tear as they saw 
her borne to her long home. Mrs. Macfiendy for- 
got her beauty and accomplishments in her misfor- 
tunes and early death; and the mother of the child 
who had fled from the touch of Agnes, felt sorry 
that she had ever called her the wickedest woman 
in the world. 

But the most affecting part of the procession was, 
little Edward, as chief mourner, led by Fanny and 
her husband, in all the happy insensibility of child- 
hood, unconscious all the while that he was the 
pitiable hero of that show, which, by its novelty and 
parade, so much delighted him, while his smiles, 
poor orphan ! excited the tears of those around him. 

Just before the procession began to move, a post- 
chariot and four, with white favors, drove into the 
yard of the largest inn in the town. It contained 
lord and lady Mountcarrol, who were married only 
the day before, and were on their way to her lady- 
ship’s country seat* 


140 


His lordship, who seemed incapable of restrng in 
one place for a minute together, did nothing but 
swear at the postillions for bringing them that road, 
and express an earnest desire to leave the town 
again as fast as possible. 

While he was gone into the stable for the third 
time, to see whether the horses were not sufficiently 
refreshed to go on, a waiter came in to ask lady 
Mountcarrol’s commands, and at that moment the 
funeral passed the window. The waiter (who was 
the very servant that at Mr. Sejmiour’s had refused 
to shut the door against Agnes,) instantly turned 
away his head, and burst into tears. This excited 
her ladyship’s curiosity ; and she drew from him a 
short but full account of Agnes and her father. 

He had scarcely finished his story when lord 
Mountcarrol came in, saying the carriage was rea- 
dy ; and no sooner had his bride began to relate to 
him the story she had just heard, than he exclaim- 
ed, in a voice of thunder, u It is as false as hell, 
madam! Miss Fitznenryand her child both died 
years ago.” Then rushing into the carriage, he left 
lady Mountcarrol terrified and amazed at his man- 
ner. But when she was seating herself by his side, 
she could not help saying that it was impossible for 
a story to be false, which all the people in the inn 
averred to be true: then, as he did not offer to 
interrupt her, she went through the whole story of 


' 

\ 


141 


Agnes and her sufferings; and she was going to 
comment on them, when the procession, returning 
from church, crossed the road in which they were 
going, and obliged the postillion to stop. 

Foremost came the little Edward, with all his 
mother’s beauty in his face. “ Poor little orphan !” 
said lady Mountcarrol, giving a tear to the memory 
of Agnes: “ See, my lord, what a lovely boy!” 
As she spoke, the extreme elegance of the carriage 
attracted Edward’s attention, and springing from 
Fanny’s hand, who in vain endeavored to hold him 
back, he ran up to the door to examine the figure 
on the pannel. At that instant lord Mountcarrol 
opened the door, lifted the. child into the chaise, 
and, throwing his card of address to the astonished 
mourners, ordered the servants to drive on as fast 
as possible. 

They did so in despite of Mr. Seymour and 
others, for astonishment had at first deprived them 
of the power of moving ; and the horses, before the 
witnesses of this sudden and strange event had re- 
covered their recollection, had gone too far to allow 
themselves to be stopped. 

The card with lord Mountcarroi’s name explain- 
ed what at first had puzzled and confounded as well 
as alarmed them ; and Fanny, who had fainted at 
sight of his lordship, because she knew him, altered 
as he was, to be Edward’s father, and the bane of 


142 


Agnes, now recovering herself, conjured Mr. Sey- 
mour to follow his lordship immediately, and tell 
him Edward was bequeathed to her care. 

Mr. Seymour instantly ordered post horses, and 
in about an hour after set off in. pursuit of the ra- 
visher. 

But the surprise and consternation of Fanny and 
the rest of the mourners, were not greater than that 
of lady Mountcarrol at sight of her lord’s strange 
conduct. “ What does this outrage mean, my lord?” 
she exclaimed in a faltering voice ; u and whose 
child is that?” u It is my child, madam,” replied 
he; “ and I will never resign him but with life.” 
Then pressing the astonished Edward to his bosom, 
he for some minutes sobbed aloud ; while lady 
Mountcarrol, though she could not help feeling 
compassion for the agony which the seducer of Ag- 
nes must experience at such a moment, was not a 
little displeased and shocked at finding herself the 
wife of that Clifford whose name she had so lately 
heard coupled to that of villain. 

But her attention was soon called from reflections 
so unpleasant, by the cries of Edward, whose sur- 
prise at being seized and carried away by a stranger 
now yielding to terror, and who, bursting from lord 
Mountcarrol, desired to go back to his mamma 
Fanny, and Mr. Seymour. 


& 


143 


iC What! and leave your own father, Edward?” 
asked his agitated parent. “ Look at me.... I am 
your father; but, I suppose, your mother, as well 
she might, taught you to hate me?” “ My mamma 
told me it was wicked to hate any body; and I am 
sure I have no papa : I had a grandpapa, but he is 
gone to heaven, along with my mamma, Fanny says, 
and she is my mamma now.” And again scream- 
ing and stamping with impatience, he insisted on 
going back to her. 

But at length, by promises of riding on a fine 
horse, and of sending for Fanny to ride with him, 
he was pacified. Then,, with artless readiness, he re- 
lated his mother’s way of life, and the odd ways of 
his grandpapa ; and thus, by acquainting lord Mount- 
carrol with the sufferings and virtuous exertions of 
Agnes, he increased his horror of his own conduct, 
and his regret at not having placed so noble-minded 
a woman at the head of his family. But whence 
arose the story of her death he had yet to learn. 

In a few hours they reached the seat which he 
had acquired by his second marriage ; and there 
too, in an hour after, arrived Mr Seymour and the 
husband of Fanny. 

Lord Mountcarrol expected this visit, and receiv- 
ed them courteously ; while Mr. Seymour was so 
surprised at seeing the once healthy and handsome 
Clifford changed to an emaciated valetudinarian, 


144 


and carrying in his face the marks of habitual in- 
temperance, that his indignation was for a moment 
lost in pity. But recovering himself, he told his 
lordship that he came to demand justice for the 
outrage which he had committed, and in the name 
of the friend to whom Miss Fitzhenry had, in case 
of her sudden death, bequeathed her child, to insist 
on his being restored to her. 

44 We will settle that point presently,” replied 
lord Mountcarrol; 44 but first I conjure you to tell 
me all that has happened to her since we parted, 
whose name I have not for years been able to re- 
peat, and who, as well as this child, I have also for 
years believed dead.” 

44 1 will, my lord,” answered Mr. Seymour, 44 but 
I warn you, that if you have any feeling, it will be 
tortured by the narration.” 

44 If I have any feeling!” cried his lordship; 44 but 
go on, sir; from you, sir.... from you, as.. ..as.. ..her 
friend, I can bear any thing.” 

Words could not do justice to the agonies of lord 
Mountcarrol, while Mr. Seymour, beginning with 
Agnes’s midnight walk to went through a re- 

cital of her conduct and sufferings, and hopes and 
anxieties, and ended with the momentary recovery 
and death scene of her father. 

But when lord Mountcarrol discovered that Agnes 
supposed his not making any inquiries concerning 


145 


her or the child proceeded from brutal indifference 
concerning their fate, and that, considering him as a 
monster of inhumanity, she had regarded him not 
only with contempt, but abhorrence, and seemed to 
have dismissed him entirely from her remembrance, 
“he beat his breast, he rolled on the floor with frantic 
anguish, lamenting, in all the bitterness of fruitless 
regret, that Agues died without knowing how much 
he loved her, and without suspecting that, while she 
was supposing him unnaturally forgetful of her and 
her child, he was struggling with illness, caused by 
her desertion, and with a dejection of spirits which 
he had never, at times, been able to overcome ; exe- 
crating at the same time the memory of his father, 
and Wilson, whom he suspected of having inten- 
tionally deceived him. 

To conclude:.. ..Pity for the misery and compunc- 
tion of lord Mountcarrol, and a sense of the advan- 
tages both in education and fortune that would ac- 
crue to little Edward from living with his father, 
prevailed on Mr. Seymour and the husband of Fan- 
ny to consent to his remaining where he was ; and 
from that day Edward was universally known as his 
lordship’s son, who immediately made a will, be- 
queathing him a considerable fortune. 

Lord Mountcarrol was then sinking fast into his 
grave, the victim of his vices, and worn to the bone 
by the corroding consciousness that Agnes had died 

N 


146 


in the persuasion of his having brutally neglected 
her. That w*s the bitterest pang of all! She had 
thought him so vile, that she could not for a moment 
regret him ! 

His first wife he despised because she was weak 
and illiterate, and hated because she had brought 
him no children. His second wife was too amiable 
to be disliked: but, though he survived his marriage 
with her two years, she also failed to prcduce an 
heir to the title. And while he contemplated in 
Edward the mind and person of his mother, he was 
almost frantic with regret that he was not legally his 
son ; and he cursed the hour when, with short-sight- 
ed cunning, he sacrificed the honor of Agnes to his 
views of family aggrandizement. But, selfish to the 
last moment of his existence, it was a consciousness 
of his own misery, not of that which he had inflict- 
ed, which prompted his expressions of misery-and 
regret; and he grudged and envied Agnes the 
comfort of having been able to despise and forget 
him. 




147 


Peace to the memory of Agnes Fitzhenry ! And 
may the woman who, like her, has been the victim 
of artifice, self-confidence, and temptation, like her 
endeavor to regain the esteem of the world by pa- 
tient suffering and virtuous exertion, and look for- 
ward to the attainment of it with confidence! But 
may she whose innocence is yet secure, and whose 
virtues still boast the stamp of chastity, which can 
alone make them current in the world, tremble with 
horror at the idea of listening to the voice of the 
seducer! For, though the victim of seduction may 
in time recover the approbation of others, she must 
always despair of recovering her own. .The image 
of a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, or some 
other fellow-being, whose peace of mind has been 
injured by her deviation from virtue, will probably 
haunt her path through life; and she who might, 
perhaps, have contemplated with fortitude the wreck 
of her own happiness, is doomed to pine with fruit- 
less remorse at the consciousness of having destroy- 
ed that of another ; for, where is the mortal who 
can venture to pronounce that his actions are of im- 
portance to no one, and that the consequences of 
yj his virtues or his vices will be confined to himself 
alone? 


THE END. 


W. Cooper , Printer. 











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